Military Service
Draftees who did not state that they were conscientious objectors and did not request service in the civil protection were by default drafted into military service (Wehrdienst) in the Bundeswehr (German federal defense forces).
Basic training (Allgemeine Grundausbildung) consisted of two months of combat training, then four months service at the assigned post. The conscripted soldier would normally reach the rank of Obergefreiter (NATO code OR-3, comparable to U.S. Army Private First Class). During his service, he got free health care, housing, food, and a railway ticket. Conscripts got paid between €9.41 and €10.95 per day of basic pay (depending on rank) plus several bonus payments such as distance-from-home pay, additional food pay for days absent from service and others.
Conscripts could not be deployed to active service in conflicts against their will. The German contributions to forces such as ISAF in Afghanistan or KFOR in Kosovo exclusively comprise professional soldiers and volunteers. Conscripts who wished to partake in such missions must have volunteered for a service extension.
Read more about this topic: Conscription In Germany
Famous quotes containing the words military and/or service:
“I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“The ruin of the human heart is self-interest, which the American merchant calls self-service. We have become a self- service populace, and all our specious comforts—the automatic elevator, the escalator, the cafeteria—are depriving us of volition and moral and physical energy.”
—Edward Dahlberg (1900–1977)