Just browsed around finding EVE info for newbies when I tumbled in here and saw this thread, so forgive me for resurrecting this one.
Couldnt resist writing something about it.
Here in Finland army service is mandatory for all males aged from 18-28.
Women can volunteer at 18-30.
This means that unless your religion is against all kinds of violence then you have 4 choises.
1. Get the "red ticket" that states that you are unfit to do a military service. If you get this for, lets say a really bad back injury, then you will be drafted again whitin few years if the injury then allows you to do a limited service (less physical stress, clerks, chefs etc.) Those who get the ticket for mental reasons wont be called in again during Peace Time.
2. Go to jail for 9 months. You dont have to drop out from school and your alloved to leave for short vacations, school or volunteer work.
You wont get anykind of criminal record for this.
3. 14 months of civil service. If you cant find something your self then a job will be appointed to you.
4. Serve 6-12 months in armed forces. If your a pacifist you CAN do a 6 months military service without anykind of weapons traning.
Youll be given a job in the kitchen, maintenance etc.
If at any point during your armed service you decide that its just not for you you can convert the rest of the time your supposed to serve in army to a civil service. If you dont want to do the civil service then your going to jail. (again if you cant get a statement for medical reasons etc. which is easy. In example telling the doctor that your having hard time getting any rest when sleeping in the same room with strangers will be a good reason. Sleep debrivation and assault weapons do not mix well.
Since many have living relatives who took part in Winter War (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War), Continuation War (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation_War) and/or Lapland War (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapland_War), the pressure to do a full and honorable service is quite high. If you apply for a job theres a very good chance that you will be asked if you did army service. In general Finnish people have a very high national pride and because of that and our history a mandatory army service is considered to be best way for Finland to handle her defence.
However there are those who just cant handle the army and those who just dont want to join (be it for political/religious reasons or something else). Internet addiction is just a more politically correct word for "too fat and too lazy" if you ask me. The number of drop outs did not increase with the introduction of internet addiction, the number of other medical reasons just got lower.
yea um.... what happened to the days of deserters getting shot?
As far as I know you can be senteced for death during an act of war for deserting and trying to get others to do so. During the last wars of Finland only few were shot, rest were inprisoned.
if you join the military and discover its not for you, just make sure you fail boot camp. after that you are on the field, you are commited. getting out for any reason other than honourable discharge is breaking a contract in my opinion.
Since you have an option to do civil service as a way to "give something back to the society" theres no reason to waste everyones time in failing bootcamp. But I agree, if you join, want to join and feel that joining is a good thing to do then you should just bite your tongue and get through it like everyone else.
heh, I wonder if there's already been created a "Netaholics Anonymous"
There are several in the states, few in europe and some in asia. Considering that there are so many cases of babies left alone for days while parents were playing EverQuest and korean kids dropping like flys in internet cafes, its a suprice that there arent any more of these.
Oh yeah, how do you get the client to fullscreen mode?
I got a pretty big monitor and high resolution so the text in the game window is allmost too tiny to see without sticking my nose right at the screen.
