Clothing Tips for the Draft Physical

The question of military service, and consequently of how to escape it, has probably accompanied the male half of humanity in one way or another ever since the first conflicts within our species arose.

In Germany we then had a generation of young people who did not have to grapple with questions such as:

• Am I prepared to „defend“ this social and political construct at the cost of bodily harm, even my own death?
• Would I really be prepared to kill another human being, someone I don’t even know, simply because he was born in a different part of the world?
• Do I want to submit to a chain of command whose decisions determine life and death, yet are often taken far away and out of strategic calculation – detached from the ordinary soldier and his reality on the battlefield?
• … and countless other questions one might ask in this connection.

I myself belonged to one of the last cohorts still to be „drafted“. Around my 18th birthday there came a friendly greeting by post: would I please present myself at the district military recruitment office and accept the congratulations in person. And since I would be there anyway, there would be a free health check and a casual chat about people, fatherland and freedom – buzzwords one would probably find rather awkward today – as well as about what I, as a young person, could contribute to preserving them.

There was a questionnaire for every physical and mental ailment, because of course they were concerned about the young people. A hearing test, to establish that one at least appeared physically capable of receiving orders. Future family planning was accounted for too: „Bend over and cough once“ – the male readers will remember.

I still recall how torn I was during the interview that followed. On the one hand, my plan was to be declared unfit. So on the questionnaire I exaggerated every allergy, claimed to smoke like a chimney and listed everything else I could think of to be classified as unsuitable. On the other hand, the leading questions of the examination board pricked at the honour of a young man, and the prospect of skiing as a mountain trooper or parachuting as a paratrooper, and blasting away a bit for fun in the process, held a certain allure.

Especially when, like me, you grew up in a time when war was actually unthinkable, or – if it happened at all – only took place somewhere else, but certainly not here in Germany.

In the end the decision was made easy for me: fitness grade II – T2

So no guard duty, no parachute and no skis.

I had intended to do civilian service anyway, together with my best friend. If I was going to drink with the guys, I would rather do it in a club or a pub where there were also women, and then sleep in my own bed afterwards, without anyone yelling at me the next morning.

So I availed myself of one of the great achievements of our post-war republic: conscientious objection.

At first still a rather elaborate affair, involving a court session in which a judge ruled on the motives of the objector, this process has over the years – probably for reasons of cost – become more and more a mere formality, consisting only of an exchange of letters. My „statement of conscientious objection“ was indeed rejected at first instance, but a revised version then led to permanent exemption from military service.

From the perspective of that time this question was more a philosophical one than one in which your own life is at stake. To a good extent it was also a question of convenience. From today’s point of view, though, it was probably one of the best decisions of my life so far.

In the light of today's global situation, the lack of diplomatic personnel in Europe and the horrors of modern drone warfare on a glass battlefield, the question of military service is now once again becoming a genuinely existential problem for young people.

That is why I would like to invite you, dear readers, to share the following song with everyone who might be about to receive such post themselves, or with friends and acquaintances who have children of the relevant age:

Yann Song King – Kleidungstipps zur Musterung

At this point I would like to speak up in favour of civilian service. From today’s perspective I look back fondly on that time, because the experience created something I consider very useful. It gave young people a good start into adult life after school. For most it meant being outside of school for the first time and doing work for which you also got paid – very poorly, admittedly, but for most it was still the first money of their own, apart from pocket money.

Suddenly I had to work with a range of people I would never have met as a grammar-school pupil. That was a lesson in humility, but also in classlessness, which at least did me good. And the state, too, could benefit each year from a great number of cheap workers who were later noticeably lacking, especially in the care sector.

At the same time you learned responsibility, workplace bureaucracy and what it generally means to be part of working life. Thus it was also a time, after school, to think once more about what you actually want to do with this life. When military conscription was abolished back then, the chance to introduce a comparable replacement for it was missed.

Since the musical-humorous engagement with this topic is in fact nothing new, I would like to offer, as a little treat, the soundtrack of my own civilian service:

T2wei feat. Nico Suave & Dendemann