F.B.A. provides an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available.

My cousin was one of the last conscripts to be called up, he was consigned to a cavalry regiment, and he ended up in the British Army’s show jumping team. On balance he found his service beneficial to his own life – I understood this book, you should read it – Martin Frost.

 A good reference guide to National Service: I had a look inside this book before I bought it and saw that it had some of the stuff I wanted to refer to. Now I’ve got the book in my hands it lives up to its promise in most things. The outer cover is not very inspiring, but it lives up to the motto “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. Excellent index and reference material and the notes are good too. Problem is the print is very small for me, so I guess I’ll have to use my magnifying glass.

National service is the system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term national service comes from the United Kingdom’s National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939.

The length and nature of national service depends on the country in question. In some instances, national service is compulsory, and citizens living abroad can be called back to their country of origin to complete it. In other cases, national service is voluntary.

Many young people spend one or more years in such programmes. Compulsory military service typically requires all citizens to enrol for one or two years, usually at age 18 (later for university-level students). Most conscripting countries conscript only men, but Norway, Sweden, Israel, Eritrea, Morocco, and North Korea conscript both men and women.

Voluntary national service may require only three months of basic military training. The US equivalent is Selective Service. In the United States, voluntary enrolments at the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps are also known as national service.