Military service, in its simplest sense, is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, whether as a chosen job or as a result of an involuntary draft (conscription). Some nations (e.g., Mexico) require a specific amount of military service from every citizen (except for special cases, such as physical or mental disorders or religious beliefs). A nation with a fully volunteer military does not normally require mandatory military service from its citizens, unless it is faced with a recruitment crisis during a time of war.
Famous quotes containing the words military and/or service:
“Nothing changes my twenty-six years in the military. I continue to love it and everything it stands for and everything I was able to accomplish in it. To put up a wall against the military because of one regulation would be doing the same thing that the regulation does in terms of negating people.”
—Margarethe Cammermeyer (b. 1942)
“Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)