This would have ben handled by military personnel in the (democratic) west, who would also "have no choice".

If a western country has conscription, agreed. Where there's no conscription, they had a choice to join up or not.

Of course they had a choice to join. But romanticism of the military is (thankfully) starting to die out, much like the people forced to die as part of a radiation cleanup.

Most people join the military at a young age, when their brains aren't fully developed, so stating "Well, they shouldn't have signed up if they didn't want to die a horrible, unpredictable death" is easy to state, but hard to wrap your head around at that age. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Don't forget the unknown unknowns. There's always cost-benefit analysis (no matter how flawed) done by people who decide to enlist. But you can't account for leaders blatantly lying to you about what is and isn't safe: agent orange, proximity to constantly running burn pits, Lejeune's water toxicity, "shaking off" PTSD symptoms, etc.

> Of course they had a choice to join.

Really? <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Russia#Late_So... "The late Soviet Armed Forces were manned by mandatory draft (with some exceptions) for all able-bodied males for 2 years (3 years for seagoing parts of the Navy and Border troops), based on the 1967 Law on Universal Military Service"

I'm unclear from the article whether this was discontinued in 1989, but chernobyl was 1986 so that's moot.

No. Full stop. Your initial comment suggested that choosing to join the military implied that a long-drawn out death due to radiation poisoning was "a choice", as its written.

Now you're trying to deflect and act like I'm arguing about whether or not conscription existed, which is nowhere near the point I was countering.

Slow down, I think it's crossed wires. I'm not suggesting that they chose a nasty death by rad poisoning, I'm saying that a military career is risky in many aspects, war being being what it is. The military tend to get used for other risky things as well.

> Now you're trying to deflect and act like I'm arguing about whether or not conscription existed

I thought you were saying they had a choice to join up, I said they certainly didn't. I guess I misunderstood your point. No offence.

I think we're in violent agreement. My apologies.

Conscription was the norm for Western Europe in 1986 (and mandatory military service still exists in several European countries such as Sweden).

Conscription in Sweden was stopped between 2010 and 2017.

Is it a choice when alternatives are die poor and homeless? Oh wait, that is their fate after they leave the army.

Think about how many people take jobs they don't like: why did they choose it? Pretending like you have a "choice" when the other choice is dying/suffering, is harmful to growth imo.

I'm not commenting on the SU fetishism in this thread, but just making a general statement.

But this is not akin to asking our military to do a dirty job, it's akin to us having military personnel from other NATO nations to do the dirty work for our mistakes when they had very little to do with what was going on.