Sense and nonsense of the German draft

[Skybird]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...702665,00.html

If one types the words "Bundeswehr" and "Langeweile" ("boredom") into the video platform YouTube, the scope of the great void becomes even clearer. The videos that appear depict German recruits doing battle with their biggest enemy: boredom.
In one video, a soldier wearing a camouflage uniform and a gas mask dances to techno music, using a broom as his dancing partner. In another film, soldiers play the game of "bed tipping," which involves tipping one of their comrades off his mattress. There is the Bundeswehr Twist, in which recruits in camouflage, steel helmets and gas masks dance the day away, and then there is the film in which men sitting in their room use tape to remove body hair from each other's thighs.
In another video, soldiers strap steel helmets to their elbows and knees and hop around on all fours across the linoleum floor, performing a "turtle race." In another, men stuff themselves into military-issue sleeping bags, like fat caterpillars, and then roll across the barracks floor -- to the applause of their comrades.
One three-minute video shows a soldier sitting on a chair. He is so tired that he can hardly keep his eyes open. He is a comic and sad-looking figure, but also a wonderful allegory for the complete absurdity of compulsory military service. Naturally, there are also plenty of videos that show soldiers drinking and vomiting.

But our wonderful, sensible, close-to-reality politicians still insist on the system being a great melting pot for different mentalities of young men from various parts and states of Germany and how idealistic and great and wonderful it all is, this draft system.