Military service in Poland

Lifted from wiki

Personally I would hate to do military service

One of my friends was telling me about his service, he would be a naval officer in times of war. He studied in Szczecin (I think) as a merchant marine (Engineer) Part of his training was for the Military Navy and he is still subject to call up.

Does anybody have stories about their service or opinions about this?

My husband went. For whole two years. Waste of his life (and mine, as we were married already then). And afterward he was not allowed to leave the country for another two years so he would not share 'highly classified secrets' to our enemies.

They just drank a lot.

I think it's a good thing. People who might decide to risk their life should do so out of their own free will.

However, I do think people should tell those young guys and girls a bit more about the harsh reality of war-torn countries though. See, you have these commercials on T.V. about how the army helps those people in troubled countries, and about how you can actively work for peace..

Well, fighting for peace is like you-know-what for virginity, I'm afraid it doesn't really work like that..

;)

The reality of war for the soldier is 95% boredom and 5% being scared. The worst part is when you return to normal life.

True, war is bad but you learn to laugh at what is happening around you.

Conscription is not a good idea, you don't want people who are forced on the battlefield.

From what I have heard, the Polish Army is doing well on operations.

Who were considered Poland's enemies at the time??

If it was in communist times , the enemy was the west....all of us on the other side of the Berlin wall....

Exactly.

I may change my opinion of Military Service.


I agree, until you need a trained population, highly unlikely in Poland’s case.

In general do you think that military service builds character or can be used as a substitute for providing employment?

I do believe that military service did in some ways make me a better , stronger person....but for some of my comrades it didn,t make them better people....it just made them dead...

I especially hated the hazing rituals; it should be forbidden in my opinion.


What do you mean by that?

I dont think Poland will need a mass army anytime soon.


Not good.


Are for fools and organised by cowards and bullies.

Is there any actual evidence of the 'west' being the enemy of Poland in communist times?

What percentage of the communist Polish armed forces were conscripts rather than proffesional sodiers, any ideas?

As Poland was a member of the Warsaw pact which was considered the prime risk by Nato at the time, one could say yes.


70% conscripts
Cant find link at the moment.

Thanks Barney it was as I thought :-))

Many soldiers who served in the Polish army at this time told me that in the event of a war they would much rather have turned against the Russians...But as a soldier myself i think probably they would have obeyed the orders of their officers , and fought against whoever the politicians decided was the enemy....

My answer is the same


Only 3 months of my time has been bad, the rest of the 13 years has been very enjoyable.

It does build character and it has made me a stronger person.

You should read about Cold War :-) in 60' there was almost WWIII. Another thing is that war between Poland and Germany in fact ended in 1990, because previously Polish west border wasn't recognized by west Germany... Heh, loking at things from current perspective, it seems that Europe before 1989 was really weird place...


Don't know exact number but most of it was conscription. PRL army size were between 200000 and 400000 soldiers (depends when), with much more ready for draft with military training. Add to that a few hundreds thousands Russian soldiers which stationed in Poland.

Anyway, I'm glad that conscription ended, but I think some kind of territorial defence should be created which could be used in case of natural disasters.