this post was submitted on 28 May 2024
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Of course it's Aussie Boomers who didn't have to do their national service, who share facebook support for Rishi's proposal.
I believe in peace not war, but Iβm rational enough to know the world just doesnβt work like that and thereβs a minimum military that each country needs to maintain. In Australia if we want more people to join the way to do it is to make it a better environment. Examples of military culture like whistleblowers going to jail, Ben Roberts-Smith saga, hazing, attitudes to women etc; itβs not an attractive proposition to most normal people when thinking about careers.
I've been seeing a ton of ads promoting women in the ADF, so they seem to be pushing quite hard to change that. Whether they're actually doing anything in practice, or it's just a giant marketing budget and a lecture about inclusivity is anyone's guess. I'm not even a woman, but at least based on my internal stereotype of the average dude in the military, I would feel really out of place and depply uncomfortable, and that's ignoring the whole killing people thing. Although I could probably be convinced to join a supporting role or something in the DVA
Edit: words
is a job, not all national service is military, it can be in all kinds of jobs and departments
I would rather they were just guaranteed public service jobs, that might actually help society, jobs like helping the environment and community service
I feel national service would also include community services, clean up, fixing things, elderly care, etc. Not just d-fens force.
Some boomers did do compulsory national service
It only ended in 1973, so yes the first ~10 years of boomers would have had national service. Even worse: Those kids would have been drafted to go to Vietnam.
Imagine being the last kid called up. Born a day later, you'd be in the clear!
Imagine being that kid born a day later - missing out on the draft to Vietnam by a day!
Whether they were personally called up or not, they absolutely were not in favour of national service at the time.
My brother being one of them. He missed out on inclusion in the draft by one month and 3 days. FYI: inclusion in the draft was for every male over 18 on January 1st - then there was the lottery for who actually got picked to do national service. You could apply for exemption from inclusion on religious grounds, ill health such as blindness or missing a limb, family responsibilities (elderly parents yes, kids no), attendance at university (free at the time) and employment in essential services (police and doctors mostly but also some engineers). This had to be done before the lottery, so that in theory everyone called up for national service was available to 'fight'. If you applied for an exemption, but they hadn't processed your application when your number came up in the lottery, they usually did their best to put you in a non-combat role until the application was processed. So many exemptions were applied for that there were years long delays in processing.
The birthday lottery. Random birthdays were picked out and if you were male and of a certain age you're off to fight in a war you had no business being in.
These ones are too young to have to do it.