(sorry, but TLR won't let me make hyperlinks for some reason)
encyclopedia_761571795_9

Answers.com (about halfway down the page under Military)

Those are just 2 but there's a lot more website that will say Switzerland has a compulsory military, just key in words like Switzerland Military history or something in a search engine.

Made em clickable



Edited by - Finalday on 10/13/2006 6:27:55 AM

somebody's gotta defend all those melted fillings from angry survivors- seriously, whats the deal with the swiss? heidi, hot chocalate, fully-automatic-firearmed-militia, nazi collaboration, and the winter games.... they're weird.

here's an interesting page with a little more detail on *switzerland's* "militia" - why do i scoff at this "milita"? well- 72 rounds for a full automatic weapon is pointless, just look at the tonnages of brass expended in vietnam and you'll realize that 72 rounds is just enough to piss your attackers off or let them know where you are.

Seems to me that if he was drawing inspiration from Swiss it ended at the service-for-citizenship rule. The whole idea in starship troopers is that 1. you have an army(not militia) 2. you're actually capabable of attacking something 3. your army is engaged frequently enough that everyone gets some actual combat experience.

*edited sweden->switzerland.*

Edited by - Cold_Void on 10/13/2006 6:35:07 PM

@ FF Here's the Wiki

The Cantons of Switzerland, ever since they won their independence from the Austrian Hapsburgs have had a long tradition of citizen soldiers which concept actually can be linked back to ancient Rome, especially when it was a Republic. Cincinnatus is a historical figure often associated with the ideal of the dutiful Roman citizen-soldier.

Being a 'real' Swiss *looks at Druid * I can confirm the informations above. The
Swiss Federal Constitution ( Link to English Version) states that "Every Swiss man must render military service" (Art. 59) and that the Swiss Army "shall be organized, in principle, as a militia." (Art. 58).
Traditionally the male Swiss Citizens had to join the Army at the age of 20 for about four months, and then regularly until 42. Officers even until 50. The principle was: once a year you have to go to the Army for three weeks until you have reached a level of 300 days in total (for soldiers; a lot more for officers (500, 750, even more than 1000 days)).
ALL those men were counted as "soldiers" - that's why the only 7 mio Swiss people had one of the biggest armies in Europe (~500'000 soldiers). And that's why Heinlein could have had the idea about a 'people's army' (just a guess, I don't know his book).

About 70 % of the male population really had to join the army, about 30 % were not fit because of medical and/or psychological problems. IMO this is the explanation why Heinlein (or someone else) might have thought military service were compulsory for Swiss politicians . But this is wrong. There is/was no such law. In daily live though the big majority of the population supported the concept of the Swiss Army and that's why almost all of the people who were candidate for any political job stated proudly their qualification in the Swiss Army. For a foreigner this could have looked like a compulsion.

Since about five years things have changed. Still it is compulsory to join the Swiss Army, but the percentage is now less than 60 %. All the Military Services are done between 20 and 32 (except officers) and it is possible to do it "all-in-one", meaning ~300 days in a row.
At long term, this will change the character of the Swiss army from the former "people's army" to the army of any other European Country. But still the number of soldiers is high (120'000 plus 80'000 reservists (men up to 42)).

just out of interest zazie, why do you write a number like 80,000 as 80'000?

(with an apostrophe, rather than a comma? )

@Zaz: Looks at me? Well sir I will have you know that my Swissdrulandian heritage is as genuine as this here Rolex I bought on my last business trip to Malasia.*raises arm and shakes watch around for all to see*

Now...does that mean the Swiss "Army" Knife is actually a Swiss "Malitia" Knife? McGiver will not be impressed I tells ya.

@ Druid: You got a Rolex-Passport too, I suppose ?
The Swiss Army Knives look less fancy than the "Swiss Army Knives"; there are two kind of it: the soldiers have just the simple one, the officers have an additional ... cork-screw (no joke).

@ ff: in German (and other European languages) the , is used for decimal parts like 1,5 meaning 3/2 (analogy to the .). The ' separates the thousands. One million is 1'000'000 and one billion 500 millions point 5 is 1'500'000'000,5.

i see, thanks zazie

Heinlein himself said in a couple of articles that he did indeed partially derive the idea from the Swiss model and the Roman Republic, but only to a certain extent. Despite service being the qualifier for citizenship, service is not encouraged - the recruiting sergeant goes to great lengths to put Johnny Rico off, showing him his injuries and deliberately not wearing his prosthetics. Johnny's parents are well-off and comfortale yet similarly pour disdain on military service, showing that neither service nor citizenship are necessary or even desirable to have a successful and settled life. And, to prove the point, service is not compulsory, as it is/was in the Swiss model, and in the Roman Republic citizenship was automatic for any person born into the Four Tribes (later thirty-five) and again, military service was compulsory by leges "the levy" - from which the military term "legion" is derived. Your rank however was largely determined by social class and property qualification.

Perhaps more to the point is that Heinlein is contrasting liberal democracy's dilution of citizenship by mass franchise and the wholesale conscription of the wartime era he'd just witnessed, with this concept of a drastically limited democratic structure with an equally limited (numerically anyway) military structure. Note that democracy and freedom aren't synonymous here - people are very free in Heinlein's future, speak openly, voice their opinions, do what they want really - there seem to be few limitations upon individual freedom, except they have no stake in the democratic process until, as Mr Raczak points out to Johnny, the citizen is someone who's prepared to put his life and entire being on the line for the sake of the common good. Johnny doesn't truly understand this until much much later.

Are you going to charge FF for the service?

har har hardy har har.