compulsory military service

A 22-year-old architecture student reveals that he had never expected to find himself in battle, having been told only that his compulsory military service would be spent training.

As a teen, his views were so extreme that the army banned him from compulsory military service.

But many other Syrians — especially young men facing compulsory military service or political opponents of the government of President Bashar Assad — say it’s unsafe to return.

The defense minister of Poland, home to one of the biggest Ukrainian diasporas, said the country was ready to help “in ensuring that those who are subject to compulsory military service go to Ukraine,” though he did not specify how.

At 21, she fell in love with an Israeli man who was traveling across the U.S. after finishing his compulsory military service.