BERLIN, Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Germany wants to increase the number of young men that are drafted, according to the country's defense minister.
"My goal is to stabilize the general conscription," German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung told Monday's Neue Osnarbrücker Zeitung in an interview. He complained that the number of young Germans being drafted had constantly decreased in recent years.
That trend has to be "stopped," he said. Jung said he planned to raise the number of positions by 5,000 so that no draftees would have to be turned away. That would push the total number of men drafted every year to 51,000, Jung said.
When they turn 18, all German men are considered for the general draft; they are able to exchange the 10-month-service for social work, however, which most young men do.
In recent years, several potential draftees had been turned away because there weren't enough positions for all of them; that means they were also exempt from having to do the social service.
