From mairead at mindspring.com Wed May 12 09:59:04 1999
Imagine a country today that treated its soldiers much as did
the Roman Empire: food, clothing, shelter, *long* enlistments,
no benefits afterward apart from the freehold of a tiny farm
out in the subjugated boonies. Imagine, too, that violence for
any reason were strongly deprecated, such that anyone going
into the army would get a status rather like the public hangman
-- shunned socially.
On the other hand, how about the Swiss system: make *everyone* be responsible in some way for the defense of the country. Then it would be no big deal who was a 'soldier' or not.
/jordan