"FUCK THE ARMY I SAY"(SPANISH ARMY MILIARY SERVICE) This article was done by this a fellow called John, he ran away from the army to LOndon. He met a group of us at a gig in London in 1990, he came back stayed in our flat and wrote this for the zine. compulsary drafting into the army is one of the worst things that can happen to a young person. It is also a blatant form of state oppression geared towards making a person conform with their fucking society. Fortunately in this counrty we don't suffer it but spare a thought for the millions of youths that have to spend between a year and 5 making complete arseholes of themselves for the sake of their fucking so-called "country". Today, I received a letter explaining that I had 15 days to show up at an army barricks somewhere in Spain or else I will be court-martialled. As far as I'm concerned they can shove their court-martial up their anus till it reaches the rest of the shit in their bodies, which will probably be found in their brains. So pissed off am I at this "democracy" tactics that I've decided to explain a bit about the system. First of all they send a letter requesting your presence at their recruitment offices. Once you get there they take advantage of your lack of knowledge of the situation and try to get you to sign up directly, even though you may be eligible for exemptions or they send you from office to office until you are so confused you don't know what you're supposesd to do. Following this, they send you a letter telling you to go to army barricks, whether you were exempt(as I was) or not. This letter by the way is sent about 4 months after being written so you can't possibly protest. After that, another visit to the recruitment office(if you decide to protest) in which you go through the same ordeal again and aretold that it is too late to claim anything. After this, I decided to consult a lawyer, who informed me that my best bet was to write a letter to them. I did, and they didn't answer. So now, I've got to write yet another letter to them and hope to get through their thick skulls. After that will come the final and most drastic measures which are: a. Don't return to Spain ever. b. Be court-martialled for being unsubmissive and hope my case is good enough to get away with it(I could end up doing up to 4 years in prison). Despite all this , resistance to the national military service is increasing. In some regions of spain like the Basque country, unsubmissive people usually get away with it as there is an extremely large amount of this type of people. Only a few unsubmissive youths are jailed usually, and this tends to be an example to other people who may think about declaring themselves unsubmissive. Unforthunitly if often works as not many people are willing to end up in jail if they can help it. There are an increasing number of groups which aim at preventing drafting and usually difficult to contact and only get through to certain sectors of people like punks and anarchists who know a bit more about this than other people. "Getting out of It" There are a few ways to get out of doing your national service. Alot of people claim mental sickness or physical impairment. This is ok but mental sickness is difficult to be really convincing and consequently, alot of people who try this take dangerous medicines to producee seizures and the like. Another way of getting out of it is to claim that you're conscientions objector. This system is used alot but you have to do social services as a substitute which may be bearable but could turn out to be a right bummer. An increasing number of people declare themselves consientious objector and if they fail to get a reasonable job to do then become unsubmissive. You can also try to claim bad sight but a medical test might fuck it up if you're bluffing and you also risk the danger of being classed as apt by the bastard army medic, even if you are right. Claiming foreign nationality can be alright but you will almost certainly end up in a wave of bureaucracy which can lead to court if they don't take any notice. Unforthunationely, most young people just go to to the army because they are unaware of possible alternatives and especialy if they live in cut off villages and towns. The media and their parents also bully them into complying with stories about going to jail and general view of the older generation(which lived through Franco's Fascist dictatorship), is that there is no alternative.