Military of Mexico: Encyclopedia II - Military of Mexico - Conscription

Military of Mexico - Conscription

Military of Mexico - The lottery

Each year, the Mexican military recruiters require all Mexican males that reached the age of majority of 18 in the previous 12 months to appear at a designated military recruitment center in their local municipality. A lottery is held to determine randomly who will be assigned either Army service, Navy service, or be excused from service completely.

The lottery may take the form, for example, of all men in attendance standing at attention for hours while each man's name is called, during which a child pulls a colored ball out of a bag- the color of which will determine each conscriptee's fate.

To obtain a passport or a U.S. visa, a man must show a document stating that he has participated in the military lottery.

Military of Mexico - Career soldiers

While all Mexican males are require by law to give "military service" for a period of one year, those services are civil and require only a few hours on weekends, and do not imply any military training, except drills. Most Mexicans, for example, that have been recruited into the military, have never touched a gun by the time their civil service is complete. The members of the Army that remain in the military after their mandatory period of service are volunteers who chose the Army as their job.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Conscription", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki