Stop the draft, go all-volunteer

Mario Maurer played the black card-red card game and "won" exemption, but the former draftee author argues it is time to end the annual draft entirely. (Photo by Kosol Nakachol)

April marks draft season for young Thai males. As in previous years, this year's military screening did not fail to stir a high degree of public excitement, with superstar Mario Maurer among the celebrities to play the "black card-red card" game, while photos of beautiful transsexuals who turned up for the inspection went viral on social media.

Even though the military draft has ended, criticism over the failure of military conscription to hold true to its purpose of "service to the nation" has not ceased. Rather, it is here to stay, especially under a military-led government that prides itself highly on national reform and "returning happiness to the people".

The most recent development was a Facebook post by well-known scholar and social critic Sulak Sivaraksa last Monday, saying Thai conscription is an act of coercion and must be scrapped. I could not agree with him more. As a former military conscript, who served a full year in the Security Forces Command of the Royal Thai Air Force under the 2012 second draft cohort, I can speak with utmost conviction that Thailand's military service is a sham.

Thai society, able-bodied young men and their parents and girlfriends are led to believe through propaganda that military conscription is a form of national service and is for the greater good. In reality, military conscripts serve no nation, just their superiors.

At military camps, they spend long hours, pretty much most of the day, doing work that has nothing to do with national security. Among their many tasks are laundry, washing vehicles, cleaning dishes and preparing the beds of their officers. Yes, you read that right. I have done them all.

Corruption is rife from the day of the draft to the day conscripts finally set foot in the camps and live in the barracks: some parents bribe authorities to allow their sons to skip conscription altogether through backdoor means, mostly by transferring their sons to districts where recruitment is already full.

Once inside the camps, some conscripts are asked to give up their meagre pay cheques of about 9,000 baht in exchange for a ticket home (in military terms, it is called "ploy taharn pee", or literally release soldier ghosts); some conscripts' pay is docked to pay for their uniforms at above market prices; and while some conscripts are ordered to do off-site work, such as transporting luggage at airports, the remuneration they are supposed to receive is often partially diverted or fully pocketed by their officers.

Refusing to take the easy route of corruption, I decided to join "black card-red card" when I came back to Thailand after 14-and-a-half years of study abroad. I ended up drawing a red card but was lucky to have my conscription reduced by half to a year of service instead of two given my undergraduate degree. The sad part was that I had to quit my job as a news reporter cum anchor at Thai PBS.

In all fairness, I must admit that not every officer is unscrupulous and oppressive. After the first seven months of training as a King's Royal Guard, I was asked to work on an English training programme for officers at the RTAF Security Forces Command under a kind-hearted air marshal, who made light of military rank and treated his subordinates with high respect.

Still, the air marshal I had the honour to serve was among the very few such superior officers. In addition, the opportunity I was given to work on a legitimate project, though only for the last couple of months of my service, was certainly not experienced by most privates.

The exploitation of young men in Thailand's military conscription lingers. A year or two of the lives of these young men, who are the country's future, is a long time to be wasted. This is particularly true for those who have graduated from college and already have a decent job. Who is to say they cannot serve the country with dignity in their own unique capacities?

Furthermore, state funding allocated to conscription can be a grave misuse of taxpayers' hard-earned money given how the budget is non-transparent and lacks accountability. If the military is so in need of more manpower to protect and bolster national security, it can go a long way by empowering people to volunteer rather than coercing them to take chances with the drawing of "black card-red card", while teaching them tangible skills that are neither housekeeping nor gardening.