Spaw, I think the idea that 16 to 18 year old boys knowing what a conviction is, let alone what their own are, is pretty unrealistic. Especially when they've been brainwashed for all their brief liftetime about the glory of war and serving one's country.

Nobody tells them they are going to ruthlessly murder boys like themselves, or be murdered by them. That they or their buddies will rape little girls and old women, and that they will be witnesses or accomplices to such acts. Or steal war booty that belongs to the people whose homes and lives they have just ravaged. Nobody talks about the lack of conviction necessary to "follow orders" to do those things, or not to do those things and doing them anyway.

Again, I disagree that conscripts have a choice to serve. Nowadays, in the US at least, we are a bit more humane towards those who refuse to serve. In most places in the world today, a boy who refuses to serve is shot, usually on the spot. Most conscripts nowadays, like most conscripts historically, have not "chosen" to fight in the wars they are conscripted to fight in. And many of them are younger than sixteen.

I think posters here have a conveniently Western European/US (skewed) view of what a conscript is--you don't seem to have any understanding of the fact that most conscripts walking this earth today never make a free choice to serve. They are forced to serve at gunpoint. It wasn't so long ago that was the "choice" European conscripts faced too. Serve or be shot. Only a lucky few ever escaped conscription and survived.

This idea of "choosing" military service is very, very recent, and a luxury still for most boys growing up in war zones.