"Any conscripts here?" Topic

Just wondering how many TMPr have done conscription service, and how much, if at all, were they paid?

Mine was 2005-2006 Hellenic Army: Ground Forces/Presendential Guard. About €12.00 EUR a month :)

With Respect
Konstantinos Travlos

They ended conscription here just as I was of age.
Did voluntarily join the navy though.

On a side note, the last drafted person retired from the service last year.

My number in the Draft lottery in 1971 was 350. So, no. Not me.

I was conscripted way back in the fifties. Black Watch.

x42

Did conscripts in your armies get paid normal wages? How long was conscription in teh US and UK. I alwasy thought that in the US it was a) not universal (unlike Greece) except in times of war b) not standard term of service?

UK was 2 years when I was in. I actually served longer to begin getting qualifications that would have been difficult for me as a civilian.

We were paid I cannot remember how much but less than we would expect as a civilian but all food and accommodation was found. It was close to universal some employment was exempt (I don't think any of those jobs preferable).

It stopped somewhere roundabout 1960.

x42

The draft here during Viet Nam was 2 years vs. 4 for regular enlistees, but I think they all got the same pay.

In the US during Nam, draftees got 2 yrs vs the normal 4 for an enlistee, the same pay, and a substantially higher chance of ending up actually going to Nam.

Also, a number of options potentially available to those who volunteered were unavailable to the drafted unless the draftee signed a 4 year enlistment (4 years from the day the signed, time already served as a draftee didn't count). In certain cases (pilot training and OCS off the top of my head), the 4 years would not begin until after training.

Note : I am FAR to young to have any direct knowledge of the above, it is all based on what I remember from reading elsewhere and tales recounted by uncles who were old enough.

I actually called my brother earlier just to be sure my memory
was correct. He signed with the USMC for 3, so he wouldn't
have to go in the army. Our cousin Tom had just graduated from
TCU in 62 when he got drafted. He went for a full commission, and was there in 65 and 67. He really liked the place.

Service in the US Army is paid by paygrade/time of service plus extras( jump pay, combat pay etc). A (Regular Army) volunteer at paygrade E-1 with under 3 years of service made the same pay as a draftee (Army of the United States) E-1 under 3. During the Viet Nam era a draftee would spend 2 years active duty, 2 years active Reserve (regular training assemblies and 2 weeks active duty) and 2 years inactive reserve. That is the Individual Ready Reserve or IRR which has no drill assemblys or training dates. IRR troops are just on the books, but they are the first called back to active duty in a national emergency. Volunteers, or regular Army troops usually enlisted for 3 years. Some specialties like medic and Army Security Agency did a 4 year hitch. If the RA soldier didn't re-up, he had 3 years of IRR service. The theory was that you owed Sam six years of duty, so I suppose the 4 year enlistee did 2 years of IRR.

One wrinkle the army came up with is if a troop got back from Nam with less then 6 months of duty left in his hitch, he could take an early out. Short timers who had been on the southern tour had an attitude problem and the army just decided not to deal with it, I guess.

Interesting

In Greece the pay for the professionals follows paygrade/time of service plus extras, with longe term volunteers (7 year contracts) receiving the same pay as officers.

But conscripts are paid on a standard pay scale : 9 Euros per month for slodeirs, 12 Euros for corporals and sergeants. The only additional pay are for soldeirs staffing the Greek Units in Cyprus (300 Euros per month= eual to the unemployment benefit) or paratroopers (something like 100 for a jump). You do get barrack housing and army chow which varies in quality from crap to suptumous-> then again after a day of training, running, and guarding any food tastes great ;))

The constitutional term of service is 24 months, but the goverment can decrease it as they see fit by administrative law. Up to 1990s it was 2 years (my dad served 3 due to 1974 and the Cyrpus War), then up to 2002(?) 1 year and 2 months, then from 2002 to 2008 1 year, and now is 9 months. Although they propably will go up to 12 months again.

I was conscripted into the Dutch army, September '72 – March '74.

It was the time when they were just upgrading the pay from not more than pocketmoney to something close to real money.

I started with something like 140 guilders and ended, as a full sergeant, with over 600. Still a lot less than the professional ones. The exchange rate was something like 3 guilders to a dollar back then, I think.

Conscripition ended a long time ago over here.

Conditions in the US Army follow a pattern established during the American War of Independance. Conditions in the winter camp at Valley Forge were atrocious and soldiers were deserting en masse. General Washington wanted his veterans to remain in the army and he asked Benjamin Franklin for help. Franklin observed that some wives had kept their husbands for 50 years and they obviously knew something about holding on to a man. So Franklin conducted the first public survey, he asked women who had recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary for advice on keeping a man. The top 3 answers were incorperated into army SOP and that is why, in the army, you 1) get lots of plain food. Its not fancy but you can eat all you want. 2) You get enough money to be cock o' the walk for a day down at the PX, but not enough to buy a bus ticket out of the territory, and 3 the army is always ing with you.

Oh in peace time they keep us in just by a carefull use of 1), peer pressure + sense of duty towards dads (if they did it why not us, even if my dad kept telling me that I shouldn't serve since he did it more then enough for me), and making it impossible for people who don't serve and don't have a physical reason not too, to get a public service job. You can avoid army serivce only if physically incapable (near blind, paralysed, amputated, deaf etc) or delcared insane (which automatically goes on your army record that all employeers ask for in this country).

The attitude is enerally better to serve and be done with it, and pull strings to get a cushy posting, then to try and avoid it. It is more terrible for concieteous objectors that serve 36 months compared to the 12 months and are ussually posted to army hospitals, army asylums, and army-prisons.

I was not drafted. My number was a little higher than the OFM's and lower than Bill Clinton's. But I was a volunteer
who did 4 years, 10 months, and 6 days of Active duty including 2 overseas tours in the Philippines and Vietnam.
My pay was the same as any other person of my time in grade and rank. I did draw $65 USD a month combat pay.
Count Natokina.