Compulsory military service, known as 'mili', was introduced in 1940 and ended on

31 December 2001. Since then, many people have wondered whether it is a good

idea to reintroduce mili for people who are 18 years old. Imagine having to spend 1

year in a military base in two years' time from now, learning how to handle weapons,

defend yourself and many other things I will go into later. On one hand, the vast

majority of young people today would be against this activity as most of them think it

is a waste of time or they think it will be very hard. On the other hand, a minority of

them would do the mili without thinking about it. On the contrary, most of them who

have done the Mili would do it again because they think that you can only learn many

things by being there. They all agree that the discipline they learned in the mili

helped them not only in their work, but also for themselves.

First and foremost, there are many benefits to doing the Mili, not only the discipline

you get, but also that you feel proud of yourself for the effort and sacrifices you have

made. In addition, many people want to join the mili because of the feeling of

satisfaction for defending their own country. You may be wondering how people

learn discipline in the mili. As soon as you start, they are all in the same boat, you

are told what you can and can not do. Every morning you get up at 5 a.m. and

practice shooting, play sports, and if you are unlucky, you may have to pick up all the

rubbish from the military centre. Also, the first two months are the same for

everyone, they are mandatory because they are an introduction to everything. Once

you finish this introduction, everyone takes on a different task. Some go with the

soldiers and practice defence, others may be in charge of cleaning, etc. Also, people

said no pain, no gain, meaning that if they did not put in the effort, they would not
succeed. As we can see, the mili has brought many benefits to the people in the

past. So why not reintroduce it?

Secondly, just as we have several advantages, we also have disadvantages. People

who are against the mili, have different opinions on why it should not be reintroduced

for 18 year-olds. Furthermore, they think that the year you spend there is a total

waste of time because you could go to university or do other things instead. Some of

them think that a good solution would be to shorten the time you have to spend in

the mili, from 15 months to only 6 or 7 months, because they think that 7 months is

the perfect time to get an introduction and the basics. Others believe that the only

option is not to reintroduce it. Additionally, some say that the mili is not for everyone

because some people do not like it or may not be prepared for that level of discipline.

The notion of freedom of choice is also used by other people to reject the

reintroduction of the mili in Spain. They think that there is no freedom of choice in the

mili because you are told what to do and you can not do anything else than what you

are told. Also, many people think that the mili is very violent because they learn how

to handle weapons and because of the environment inside, this is something that

every who has done the mili would not agree because they think it is not violent, it is

completely the other way, you make new friends, you hang out with people, etc.

Thirdly, since we have seen the pros and cons of the mili, some people are in the

middle because they have opinions on why or why not it should be reinstated. These

people prefer to keep the mili, but with some adjustments. The first adjustment would

be to make it optional instead of compulsory. This is something most people would

agree with, because it means that the people who want to do it can, and the people
who think it is a waste of time or other things do not need to do it. Moreover, another

adjustment that most people would like is the fact that the government pays you to

do it. Imagine getting paid a decent wage to do it, that would attract more people and

they would do it. The best option from all of this is without any doubt, change it from

mandatory to optional, if we change this, everything would be resolved because the

people who do not want to be in the mili, they are not obligated and the people who

think that it is very important to do the mili, they can do it.

With all the above in mind, we can conclude by saying that the mili gives you a lot of

benefits such as dealing with sacrifice, it gives you discipline and a plenty of things

more. Furthermore, most people nowadays are against reintroducing the mili again

because they think that it is a waste of time and that 15 months is a lot. The best

thing you can do is shorten the time to only 6 or 7 months. In my humble opinion, I

genuinely think that if I were 18 years old, I would go to the mili for different reasons

such as the discipline you get and that after being 15 years in school I think it is a

good idea to have new experiences and learn things you can not learn in school. I

have heard a lot of opinions about people who have gone to the mili and they would

return because they learned a lot of things and made a lot of friends. Also if I had to

change one thing from the mili is that both men and women could go not only men.