Best of luck to you Rig. Although is sounds like you won’t be in any immediate danger, please take care.
May you stay safe, meet interesting people, and learn useful skills.
You’ll be missed, Rig. Take care, we’ll throw you a welcome back party when you return.
:bowser:
Most countries have a draft, hell it wasn’t that long ago that the US had one.
Rig, the year will flyby. Have fun.
Thanks, guys*.
Xwing, I try**.
Also: HI GIANT EASTERN NEIGHBOUR. HOW’S THAT NATO FOR YOU?
If anything extraordinary doesn’t happen, Erdogan is slowly wresting the control of the state from the army (he survived a postmodern coup too), which is a pretty good thing. Both our economies can’t afford being in the top 10 of spenders for armaments and you can’t visit Istanbul without getting smothered by friendly Turks, so cutting the arms race (which adheres to fixed percentages, anyway) would be nice. We could have bought millions of Lehman shares with all that money, you know.
See, things change. 
edit: *Nulani included, of course.
**By which I mean, thanks.
Neither are men. 
They call it “drafting”, but since we don’t have much military in Sweden, it’s basically just meant to sort out those who can and really want to be in the army, from those who just go there because we have the “draft” system in sweden and so we are required to at least show up.
For me it was taking the bus there, two tests and then this:
They look at my hearing test results (I have very poor hearing in my left ear after repeated surgery in 8th grade due to heavy infections).
“Do you REALLY want to be in the army?”
“Well, no. Not really.”
“Okay, you can go home.”
Normally, you are required to stay there overnight (it even says in the letter you recieve that you WILL stay overnight), but I was home in time to catch the “Nine o’clock movie” that night.
So yeah. “Drafting” IS pretty much a joke here and most people are fully justified to laugh at it.
(On the plus side though, we have/are developing some of the most advanced weaponry in the world, so we can, at least partially, make up for the lacking manpower. :P)
I’m seconding the stories. Perhaps your first post back will be a humorous short story regarding your service time?
Be safe, we’ll be here when you get back.
“We” is loosely defined, of course, to include the about 10 of the current contributors and about 2000 RPGC newlings that will say “I don’t remember you, but welcome back.”
Eh? I’m not sure what you mean by “things change” in the context of that quote. But the blessing of Freyja upon you, anyway.
I barely remember anyone, since my people-memory is crap. But I still pretend I do because I’ve been around so long that I SHOULD remember almost everyone.
Speaking of which, who are you again?
YOU WILL SHOW RESPECT FOR YOUR FATHER OR SO HELP ME SOMEONE IS GETTING A REAL HURT.
2000 newlings? Aren’t you a tad optimistic? Unless there’s a plan to heavily advertise in the NY Times
I remembered that old quote (which was also used in Full Metal Jacket; I’d forgotten about that) “I wanted to see exotic Vietnam… the crown jewel of Southeast Asia. I wanted to meet interesting and stimulating people of an ancient culture… and kill them”. So, my thought was that if we’ve dropped the “kill them” part, things are getting a bit better. If you don’t watch world news. I don’t think I have a point, really.
As for your draft story pokefreak, I’ll selectively discard it from my memory for a year.
People, I’m off. I’ll try to post an update or two when I’m on leave (easier in the beginning and in the end). If you purge inactive accounts again, keep mine intact pls - I hate having to remember new passwords… Bye byes and take care.
Good luck out there, I hope you come back fine! 
Goodbye, Rig! And good luck!
As far as inactive accounts go, with the amount of posts you have, you won’t have to worry. They usually purge people under fifty post count, or something.
I got my first, precious leave from the army. The acclimatisation involved little free time and long days (often 18+ working hours, standing, with a few breaks). We still have to encounter extra shit, but we’re past the initial crunch, so things will start getting better, supposedly. Past fucking soldiers got purposefully injured to get injury leaves, so the gym is closed, aaargh! When you’re assigned to help somewhere, you don’t usually edit:[strike]have[/strike] get to take a shower. 6 hours/day sleep (max) suck and I’m fucking tired. The 7h in the weekends feel so refreshing. Cleaning up huge, shallow baking pans with a guy with two Master’s is ridiculously awesome. I’ll need to stop (mentally) swearing like a sailor once I get discharged. Cheers.
Glad to see you’re alive, Rig XD Although I see you’re being drilled to the bone. Oh well, I hope that there are better things coming after the, as you say, first crunch. And yeah, cleaning pans with a guy with two Master’s degrees sounds like a hoot XD
None of the guys I wash pans with even have their Batchelor’s yet, jerk. DDDD=
Way to rub in how much cooler the army is.
One of my friends apparently intends to wait until he finishes his Master’s of Technology… It’s not going to be very nice when you’re closer to 30 than 20 and some 18-year old NCO is unleashing his full drill barrage due to some minor misconduct like, say, not having your bunk perfectly set up or having one hem higher than the other… (For some reason, it was MUCH more easier to understand that as an offensive thing to their eye than it is, say, NOW, if I had never gone over the obligatory 6 months.)
And no, sailors aren’t the only ones to learn awesome ways of oral abuse. NCO, CO, plain troopers, there are plenty of new ways to unleash a litany of curses after a particularly taxing week or two in the woods…
Awww man 
We’ll still be here when you get back. Try to have fun, if that’s possible, and hopefully the experience will make you a stronger person.
So, I slept 13+1 hours straight and I still got it in me. Watching the first part of a show despite my cold wasn’t the smartest move, but catching a bit of normal life was refreshing. Plus, my fever is subsiding. Hard times, Weii Mabat has a point that the earlier you join, the more you can overlook stupid stuff. Let’s just say half the people in the dorms use sleeping bags to avoid messing up their bunk. My bed at home is a mess right now and I’m proud of it.
Don’t you know the Army is a highly advanced group, Arac? Tremble!
I could do without the experience, but seeing a homophobic guy in the dorms shut up at the first sign of a verbal confrontation was satisfying. I’ve also done a couple of stupidities with officers that I won’t disclose till the year’s over