An incomplete man?

Belgium abolished conscription in 1994. How do I know this, and of what use is this information to anyone? As it turns out, the event had side effects, some of which were entirely unexpected. In my last post, I mentioned conversing with a young Belgian man about European life, on my way from Berlin to Paris (in July 2001). I started talking to him as I was getting bored after listening to songs for hours in bus from Berlin to Paris, and asked him about places to see in Paris. Soon, the conversation moved on to songs we were listening. We exchanged Walkmans, and listened to each other's song for some time, and tried to translate the songs for each other. He was listening to German songs, and me to old Hindi songs.

After some time, the topic of conversation moved to friendship, and I asked him whether he had many friends. This simple question triggered something, and he started crying. I was taken aback for a while, but consoled him, and prompted him to tell me about his problems. Turned out that Belgium abolished conscription in 1994, and this guy was amongst the first ones to benefit i.e., to avoid military training. He was amongst the youngest in his college batch, and most of his peers had started their conscription when the orders to abolish conscription came in. So he was amongst the very few who did not have military training among his peers, and this made him the odd person out. Either his peers avoided him, or if not, most of their conversations were centered about cool things which happened during the military training. Some even suggested that he was an incomplete man without military training, and was not macho enough to remain in their group. Then onwards, he became an introvert, and had very few friends.

One thing to wonder is, this stigma was attached only to the minority who escaped conscription in a year where most people could not avoid it, and not to people in later years, where a vast majority chose not to go for military training. If doing military training is symbol of being a complete man, why don't most people voluntarily go for it? One learns new things every day!!!