Last week a few younger Thai guys I know traveled to Bangkok as they had to attend the draft for the Thai army. When you turn 21 years old you have to go into the draft to join the army for 2 years.
If you volunteer after you reach 18 you only have to do 6 – 18 months depending on your level of education.
Also you can be a student soldier for 3 years in years 10, 11, 12 at school and this will then give you and exemption.
Not many of the guys I know want to be in the army, especially in the south of Thailand where bombs are the normal everyday occurrence. So being Thailand there is a way to guarantee that you won’t be conscripted. How you ask? Well, simply like every thing else in Thailand you pay money.
Men travel to the villagers here in Isaan and talk to the boys who are coming up for conscription and ask if they want or don’t want to be in the army. A fee is then agreed on and when the date of there conscription comes they travel to Bangkok and meet the man, pay their get out of the army fee and just have to wait for all the paperwork to be done.
I am not making this up as my friend who just returned paid 17, 000 Thai Baht to be guaranteed he wouldn’t be conscripted. They write a small medical condition or something on his paperwork and he is excused. He arrived in Bangkok early and seen his parents for a few days and then on the day of his conscription met the man about 30 kms outside of Bangkok to pay his fee and then went to the place where all the medicals and paperwork was being conducted.
There were at least 1,000 people there and they only wanted 80 people to join out of the 1,000. That’s pretty good odds of not being conscripted. If you want to take a chance and not pay the fee; there is a tin that has red and black balls in it. You simply reach into the tin and pull out a ball. If you pull out a black ball you are excused from military service, if you pull out a red ball you are in the army for 2 years.
Even though the odds are incredibly good, many don’t want to take the chance of being drafted, so they just pay. One of the other guys I know only paid 10,000 Thai Baht so he got a bargain.
It is funny how nearly everything in Thailand relating to government bodies relates to money, I personally have never paid a bribe to an official form any department, I know of foreigners who have but I haven’t, yet!
So all this money being paid by prospective army draftees, it is lining the pockets of how many people, I have know idea. Whoever is receiving it must be living a pretty good lifestyle while the very people they are extorting it from, usually don’t have it to pay and get loans from unscrupulous loan sharks to pay the fees.
Well it is part and parcel of Thailand but it doesn’t affect me as I am not Thai. Also I really don’t care because if the Thai people really wanted to stop they would protest in mass numbers so they world media and Thai media couldn’t ignore it, but again that would be too much of an effort and it is easier to just say “Mai pen rai” and keep on living the same old lifestyle as usual.
Brunty.
3 comments:
Brunty, does being help up for money by a Thai police officer count as paying a bribe?
Brunty,
Yes, you report is true; mainly the only kids in the army are the ones who's parents send them to straighten them out OR the kids who are too poor to bribe their way out.
Kinda like the usa army.
I suppose it could MJ.
Franky, this is true. Some parents see it as a last resort to try and straighten out their kids.
Some villagers get loans from the notorious loan sharks to pay the fee and then struggle to repay the debt.
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