Denmark launches 11-month military service for 1,600 recruits

Some 1,600 young people are reporting to military barracks across Denmark to begin a new 11-month conscription programme, replacing the previous four-month model, DR reports.

Among them is 21-year-old Emil Græsborg from Aars in northern Jutland, who is starting at the air station in Karup. He will serve in cyber conscription and says he feels ready for the increased seriousness of the programme.

“When I listen to my friends who have previously served, conscription has seemed quite detached from reality, and it has lacked this seriousness. I think the world we live in now means that we take it more seriously,” Græsborg said.

“Ultimately, you train to be ready both to give your life and to take a life in order to protect the country you care about.”

The new 11-month service consists of five months of basic training followed by six months of operational service. Conscription in the Royal Life Guards lasts 12 months.

Lieutenant Colonel Rune Kayser of the Slesvigske Fodregiment, a regiment based at Haderslev Barracks, said the new programme was more than an extended version of the old one.

“Some people previously called conscription a ‘folk high school stay’, but now there is a different seriousness. The conscripts will soon be sent out to carry out a task. After 11 months, we should actually be able to go to war with them,” he said.

A smaller group began the longer service in February. Jesper Otto Hansen from Nykøbing Falster has been serving with the Navy in Frederikshavn since then and is currently on a voyage in Greenland.

Hansen said four months was not enough time to learn everything needed. As a mechanic, he is using his skills aboard the ships.

“With the 11-month service, people’s skills are put to use, and it is extremely effective and good for the Defence,” he said.

The new programme is intended to enable conscripts to carry out concrete tasks in Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, rather than simply spending longer in uniform.

Colonel Kenneth Strøm, head of the Conscription Programme, said the longer service was necessary to build up military capability quickly.

“Ultimately, if there is a war, conscripts will also be deployed in war,” he said.

All 1,600 recruits starting today volunteered for service and will be distributed among 14 military barracks across the country. In future, everyone, regardless of gender, will automatically receive a summons to the military assessment known as Forsvarets Dag when they turn 18.