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Comment by chrisseaton

How do you motivate a conscript?

When I was in the British Army, which is volunteer only, commanding a basic training troop if someone was wanted to give up we could say to them 'if this isn't for you then you can go home' (of course we did coach and mentor people to help them, I mean in cases where people just give up and stop soldiering when an exercise gets tough). They usually worked extremely hard to get into the Army in the first place because it's competitive so we know they're motivated.

What do you do with a conscript who never wanted to be there and possibly fundamentally isn't suited to military life anyway gives up? Threaten them with legal action?

What do you do if they sort of do what they're told, but not really putting any effort into it?

Conscription seems counter-productive to me. If you can't attract enough motivated and talented people to join your military then maybe your military is not representative of your society anymore and you should fix that.

parent chrisseaton 9 years ago

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