In Germany there is a law requiring all male German nationals are liable for military service when they turn 18 years old. That means you have to do military service. How long this will change again and again. Previously, there were 18 months, now only half as long. If you go on Friday or Sunday in Germany by train, you see many very young men in camouflage uniform. I think it's mostly an ugly and frightening picture, because one thinks immediately of war. The guys are sitting peacefully in the train and then go for the weekend home to their families. On Monday, they must again learn to defend their country. There is also an alternative to military service, to the end of this episode more.

Until all conscripts have three months in basic training. There, they learn to shoot, for example, and also how to help others. After an examination, it continues to specialize. You can go to paratroopers or the Navy. In the army can do various training courses, you can do the driving for lorries and the like. So some things that you can use later in civilian life. There are also Bundeswehr universities for future officers.

It may also commit themselves voluntarily for more than nine months. Then you stay on time for several years as a soldier in the army. This may be two years, but it can also be twelve years or more. Many men do this to make an expensive education in the army can and later in civilian life in a new profession to work. Allegedly the 85 percent of the time soldiers. But there is another possibility: You may also be a professional soldier, and thus also of his profession because of a soldier in Germany.

The army consists of three areas, roughly speaking. There is the army, troops belonging to the land. There is the Air Force, which as the name already cares about the air, and there is the Marine who goes to sea. The chief of the military is the Federal Minister of Defence. He is incidentally not a military but a civilian - and may still issue orders to the military. If war would again or Germany would have to defend something that would be upper head of the Federal Chancellor.

How many soldiers are there in Germany, is set again and again. During the Cold War, there were nearly half a million men. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany there were 370,000. By next year there will be 250,000. Incidentally, since 2001, women in the army, but they must make no military service, but can go in voluntarily to the army. Approximately 15 percent of German soldiers are women.

A functioning military to have cost a lot of money. 2009 some 31 billion euros will be spent in Germany. There are always discussions in the country, whether this money is invested properly and whether it should rather not spend on areas such as education.

How does a young man to the army? You have the so-called screening. This is an examination by a special doctor. Here it is measured, weighed and interviewed. Then he must give a urine sample, make a visual and hearing test and then it will pulse and blood pressure measured. After further checks, the physician decides whether the applicant is fit enough for the military. Two thirds are usually classified as fit enough, the rest is discarded and does not have the military service. Anyone who has passed the physical exam and still do not want the military, who can refuse military service. This right is even enshrined in the Constitution. This one must make a written request in which one tells you that for reasons of conscience can not participate in military service. The reason is simple that you can not bear to use a weapon. If the request is approved, you can make a so-called civilian service. In colloquial language it is simply called community service.

A community service, short Zivi done, nine months in a social institution, so as long as his colleagues in the military. Zivis for example, work in the sick or elderly people, they drive ambulances or help out in kindergartens. Often, they also serve people with disabilities.

So that now, some information on the military and civilian service. This is of course again a topic on which you could still tell a lot more, for example, about the history of the military. But you can read anything on the internet.

Finally, once again German music, from the band BILK the song Phenomenal.

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In Germany there is a law requiring all male German nationals are liable for military service when they turn 18 years old. That means you have to do military service. How long this will change again and again. Previously, there were 18 months, now only half as long. If you on Friday or Sunday in Germany with the ...