h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Amen to that, dmitri. It's probably the same the world over.

I just rememberd something.

Back int 1980, the summer of the Moscow Olympics. I was spending a month in Romania, at the University of Cluj, and staying in a dormitory in that charming town.

One July morning I woke to the sound of gunfire. Total alarm. Till I found out it was the month when the college conscripts trained. They were shelling something or other outside town. Very loud, but harmless.

The guys trained, then the girls. The next week, I was walking down the street and saw a beautiful girl in a drab uniform. Wearing earrings. Carrying a large bouquet of flowers. Going into the beauty shop...

What a charming Warsaw Pact army they were.

Of course, a friend of mine had a different opinion. He had been drafted into the Romanian army. Then his family got to move to Germany - they were Volksdeutsche - and, lo and behold, he had to go into the Bundeswehr.

I thought that was unfair, making somebody serve on both sides like that...

It all seems unfair. There are volunteer women in the army, and they don't have to cut their hair - the men have, and they even have to shave off their beards if their superiors decide that (by law, they are entitled to keep their beard like it was on the day they entered the army, bt at the end of the day, they have to abide by their superiors' orders).

My cousin's considering renouncing his Turkish citizenship. If he sets foot in the country now, he'll be conscripted right away, and if someone comes from outside and doesn't speak much Turkish, they deal with it by sending him straight to the front lines...

I knew a situation like that, back in the 60s.

Some family friends who were missionaries in Ecuador. Their son was born there.

When he turned 20, the Ecuadorian army sent him a draft notice, even though they hadn't lived there for years.

Took some work to straighten it out, so they didn't have to send their son back down there.

So you say he was automaticaly Ecuadorian because he happened to be born there? Fascinating.

The Ecuadorans seemed to think so, although the US rules were different.

It does seem odd to westerners.