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Talk:Conscription in Greece

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Devil's Advocacy for Two Sections

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Attitude towards conscription and conscriptees (draftees)

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Conscription in Greece is considered by the draftees as waste of time, since no real training takes place after bootcamp, but most feel that it's a "necessary evil", since it can't be avoided without suffering serious repercussions. Most also feel that conscription in Greece is an attempt by the Greek Armed Forces to secure a presence and say in the political life in Greece.

Do we have any sources for these opinions? Based on my (admittedly, rather limited) travels in Greece, I would say that the paragraph does reflect the feeling of a majority of young urban men that I talked to. Still, what's the proof? I can tell you that I talked to a guy smoking a cigarette waiting for the Metro at Syntagma, but that doesn't let us say most. Are there any surveys we can cite here? There must be somewhere. Find them and cite them. Don't be lazy.
I agree that the first part of the paragraph reflects the opinion of a lot of young urban men, but not necessarily most of them. The second part of the paragraph reflects the author's opinion; it is certainly not the opinion of most (first time I have heard of it myself). --Skopiestelos 5 July 2005 12:40 (UTC)
The second part is odd, and few in Greece share this oppinion. But the first part is true, and even active officers admit that. Especially the infantrymen get little training beyond basic, and remain idle most of their time in the army (or better siad, doing jobs not related with combat). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.207.250.216 (talk) 13:04, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I served with a Greek Infantry unit, and I can tell you that training (after Boot Camp) was anything but a waste of time. In fact, the operational and training regime was often more intense than at Boot Camp. The only example of "no real training" that I can remember were the soldiers who were stationed at the various Outposts, and those with lower Ability ratings (3 and 4), who often missed the numerous training exercises and missions. I can't speak for any of the other branches of service, but it certainly does not reflect the situation in the Infantry (at least, from my experience). Dragases (talk) 11:44, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I must agree with Dragases. There is a difference between popular perception and actual practice. Infantry training actually accelerates after basic training for most soldiers. Boredom does too, but this is because soldiers must do guard duty and these kinds of tasks. That doesn't mean training has stopped or become meaningless.Nojamus (talk) 03:08, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

National Guard

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In 1998, the Greek Parliament voted law 2641 which mandated enrollment of Greek men and women between 18 and 60 years of age into a National Guard (Ethniki Froura). The Guard would respond to enemy action, natural disasters and all sorts of emergencies, but the law was never enforced.

Didn't they have an Ethniki Froura before World War II? On Crete, the militia and even unorganized bands of civilians fared well at first. But the Germans eventually won, and extracted a terrible revenge on the civilian population that had resisted them.
The Ethniki Froura was officially established in 1945, as one of the three components of the Army (the other two being the Active Army and the Reserve). It has been in existance ever since. The law in question, merely restructured the Guard and adjusted some of the regulations to modern times. The information in this section (and much of the article) is factually incorrect and apparently motivated by a transparent agenda.

Everywhere on the island, Cretan civilians, armed and otherwise, joined the battle with a savagery unexpected by either side. In one notable incident, an elderly Cretan beat a German parachutist to death with his walking stick. This was not an isolated case, and many Germans met their end by knife or club in the Cretan olive groves and villages. Once they had overcome their shock at such unprecedented resistance from a civilian population, the Germans reacted with equal ferocity. -From the Battle of Crete article.

We should discuss the possible upsides and downsides of sparing unwilling 20 year olds but accepting angry old men with canes. Surely this was discussed in the Vouli and in the press. What have they been saying?--Jpbrenna 30 June 2005 04:30 (UTC)

My only problem is with the sentence: "Most also feel that conscription in Greece is an attempt by the Greek Armed Forces to secure a presence and say in the political life in Greece."

Mandatory conscription is regulated by laws decided by parliament, not the armed forces which must obey civilian authority. Military rule in Greece ended 31 years ago.--Theathenae 30 June 2005 10:44 (UTC)

Law 2641/1998 is available here. --Skopiestelos 5 July 2005 12:23 (UTC)

Why is that picture there of the guy holding his rifle backwards? It doesn't mean they are not professional. There are many pictures of US forces doing stuff like that and they don't have conscription.

Yes, even professional soldiers goof-off occasionally. I didn't add the picture, if I recall correctly, but I did add a caption to give it context. A standard argument in support of all-volunteer militaries is that volunteers are better-motivated and more professional. That argument isn't specifically advanced here, and I can't remember if it was when I posted the picture. So, if you think it is inappropriate, I have no ideas to taking it down - but George (the lovable buffoon in the photo) might. --Jpbrenna 17:10, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Trivia

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Non-Greek European Union citizens have the right of unlimited permanent residency and employment in Greece without the obligation of conscription.

So what? All over the world military service obligation only applies to citizens, not to residents. I think this statement should be deleted. --Skopiestelos 17:04, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. IMO, the article should focus on those who serve, rather than the various minorities who do not. TheArchon 21:14, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Greek Constitution states that all citizens have equal rights and obligations and that all citizens capable of bearing arms must contribute to the defense of the country. Greek conscription law [1] though, only applies to male citizens.

Two things here: (a) the Greek Constitution (article 4) states that 'all citizens capable of bearing arms must contribute to the defense of the country as provided by law (italics added). This means that there is no constitutional obligation for women to serve, or any mismatch between the contitution and the law. (b) when this article was first formulated (1975, although it has survived several constitutional reforms), it was considered that women were not generally capable of bearing arms: therefore it was not the framer's intent to exclude women from conscription.

Financial Reprecussions

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I am not sure why the statement "most employers in Greece dislike hiring men over 32-35 of age" relates to an article about conscription. My understanding is that conscripts in Greece are well below that age. Secondly, I would very much appreciate seeing statistics to back up this (and other) contentious claims in the article.

Clean-up

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I've done some revision to this over the last few days. This involved moving around (many!) pieces of text under different headings. So before anyone get undully upset, your text is probably still in the article. :)

Why not relevant

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It's a picture of a Greek conscript. Where else would you put a picture of a Greek conscript? Project2501a (talk) 09:44, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The photo was discussed elsewhere in this Talk page (4 years ago when your comment was posted). But basically, the photo was being used in a sensationalistic way to "prove" the point that conscript are poorly trained. There was no context: was it a joke? was it an accident? was the person in the photo truly inept? That's why the photo was taken down (again, 4 years ago).Nojamus (talk) 03:56, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Errors in the article??

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10 years have passed since I served in the Greek army, but if I'm not mistaken PRO (DEA) served 5 months longer than the rest back in 1998-2000, or 23 months, not 18 like the rest as it is mentioned in the article.

Also, if I remember correctly most people get drafted at 19 years old, not 18, but can volunteer at 18 if they want to go a few months earlier (I did so myself).

I did no changes to the article myself because I have been out of the army for more than 9 years, so I might have missed some changes that have occured meanwhile... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.166.3.145 (talk) 23:15, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are errors in the article, including the current duration of duty which is 9 months for the infantry / land forces only, and 12 months for navy / air force. Someone with a recent understanding of Greek military matters should edit it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sovjohn (talk • contribs) 14:31, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I served recently as a PRO while the tour was still 12 months (+5 for PROs), and added some info in the PRO section. PROs historically always served 5 months more than soldiers and conscript NCOs, because of their training period as cadets, but people now consider the 5 extra months to be a subjectively heavier extra period compared to the tour's duration: 28 vs 23 or 23 vs 18 months is not the same as 14 vs 9, which is almost 55% extra service time. Plus the tour is now considered short enough that many conscripts choose the shortest way out of it. About PROs voluntary nature, it's a subject of debate: answering "no" doesn't preclude one from the testings, it just grants him less "points" on an attributes' scale. In practice, if there's a shortage of actual volunteers, even "reluctant" candidates may be chosen. EpiVictor (talk) 12:34, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Attitude towards conscription and conscripts - Clean Up

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I have made major changes to this section. The original text was disorganized and unbalanced, often having irrelevant information. For example, there was a whole paragraph describing military helicopters being used as air ambulances, but these helicopters are not crewed by conscripts and are therefore irrelevant to the article. There were also scattered bits of relevant but unclear information, often occupying too much space. For example, several sentences described conscripts fighting forest fires, but the authors did not relate them to "attitudes towards conscription". Finally, a lot of the material had to be moved around so that there is some logical flow of information.

The current version is much better, in my opinion. It is balanced, so that is gives approximately equal weight to pro- and anti-conscription attitudes. The material is also all relevant, and its relevance is explained.

The only problem now is that almost nothing in this paragraph is cited. This wasn't my doing; I just worked with the material that was already present (and uncited since at least 2008). I've indicated the most important missing citations.Nojamus (talk) 03:51, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Financial repercussions 2

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"This price tag (810 euro for every month not served) is calculated based on the income of professional soldiers adjusted for taxes. Therefore, it is considered as indirect taxation, on out-of-country and re-repatriated Greeks, as that amount is basically salary for an entire year in Greece."

This is very dubious, as it implies that only "out-of-country" and "repatriated" Greeks have to pay this - which is not the case. Moreover, this is not considered as "indirect taxation" by all those who have actually served; they see it as a penalty paid by their fellow Greeks who chose not to "waste" 9 months of their lives. --Knop92 (talk) 14:53, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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