Expanding Military Service in Bulgaria – Is it Worth it?

My one-month basic military training for the voluntary reserve of the Bulgarian Army shows that there is much to do before it could be considered useful.

In recent months, the Bulgarian military has received a disproportionate amount of attention from politicians and the government of the country.

Overnight, the country this month became the second biggest spender (per capita) in NATO thanks to a single $1.2-billion transfer to the US for the purchase of eight state-of-the-art F-16 Viper jets (that won’t arrive until the middle of the next decade).

Thus, it has become one of the few NATO allies that have spent more than the pledged two per cent of national economic output on military rearmament.

Moreover, the Defence Ministry has announced it will proceed with two other large tenders to for a battalion of armoured carriers worth 600 million euros and two new frigates for its navy costing up to 440 million euros in total and likely to be delivered in the next seven years.

Amid the hardware upgrades, however, the personnel situation in the army remains grim.

In January this year, Defence Minister Krasimir Karakachanov announced the army was short 5,500 people. According to the 2018 Defence report, the professional armed forces are 20 per cent understaffed, while the voluntary reserve is staggeringly 83 per cent understaffed.

While a one-month long basic training program to prepare volunteer reservists has been in action for the past four years, only 337 people have completed it and therefore joined the reserve force.

It is with this in mind that the Defence Ministry has announced the current drafting program “ineffective” and has launched a bid to change the Voluntary Reserve Bill to, apparently, motivate more young people to join the army reserve.

The two core measures at the heart of the legal changes include expanding the training program from one to six months and obliging employers to let prospective reservists take six months of unpaid leave while compensating them financially.

Associations of employer have protested the move. In early August, the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce issued a statement against the changes, claiming that at a time of labour shortages the army is unfairly pulling people out of the workforce, effectively punishing businesses.

But business interests aside, the army and defence ministry face other questions regarding the future of reservist training. The first is how to motivate young professionals to leave their jobs at a time of economic boom and rising private sector salaries in order to join the military. Secondly, and most importantly, is the training even worth it?

The volunteers prepare for shooting practice, where they will all fire 17 rounds – including five blanks – with a 1960s automatic rifle. Photo: Martin Dimitrov.

In the army now

Based on this reporter’s experience, the answer to the second question so far is a clear ‘No’.

I spent four weeks between 15 July and 9 August in basic training at the reputable Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy in Varna on the Black Sea coast to join the reserve force of the Bulgarian Army.

What I saw makes me certain that, before opting to extend the time prospective reservists spend in training, the Bulgarian authorities must first improve significantly the quality and methods of training and adapt it to the challenges of the 21st century.

In its current form, the basic military training the Bulgarian Army provides is obsolete, stuck somewhere, at best, in the 1970s.

The volunteers are welcomed with shabby, outdated uniforms (made in 1994) that one of the officers said do not satisfy the Rules and Procedures of the Army.

All the camouflage pants are larger in size than the largest volunteer, while all the camouflage shirts are smaller – despite of the fact that the Military District Offices double-checked our clothing sizes in the months before the start of the training.

But the real shock came when we volunteers were ushered into the attic of one of the teaching buildings, where we had to find suitable pairs of boots from a massive pile of decommissioned shoes. After an hour of digging, we discovered a distinct shortage of boots sized 43-45 – the standard size for military-aged males.

The feeling of being a second-class soldier became even more acute when we compared ourselves with the military school cadets, who marched in perfect synchrony in their sand-coloured uniforms (that actually fit).

The young cadets from the Naval Academy serving as junior commanders were the only breath of fresh air during the training. Photo: Martin Dimitrov.

From the inadequate to the absurd

Personal discomfort aside, most demoralising was the half-baked program the Defence Ministry prepared for the volunteers, as well as the low bar set for entry into the course that lowers the standards of commanding officers.

My group, of 27, three of whom would go on to quit the training, was a colourful bunch.

Fifteen were men, half of them aged 18-22 and inspired by feelings of patriotism, a desire to test their mettle and to experience the prodigal army life their fathers told them of (some with disdain, some nostalgic).

The rest were women, some in their early 40s including one who admitted she was only in it for the one-month army salary.

Almost half of the participants, however, would not have passed rigorous physical or psychological checks, as the officers and the academy psychologists confessed in private conversations.

While such tests are not currently compulsory before joining such training, the bar would be raised once the new six-month course is introduced, the Defence Ministry says.

The difference in terms of physical preparedness makes commanders more lax – they allow many breaks and punish misbehaviour more sparingly as the month passes.

Such misbehavior usually consists of lack of discipline while in formation – people talk to each other and often shout or even kick others who fail to fall in line while marching, which takes up long hours of volunteers’ time in preparation for the parade march that takes place on the day they take their Military Oath.

Apart from marching around and learning all the ranks in the military hierarchy, volunteers learn few other practical skills.

Take shooting as an example. In the ministry program, 18 hours are allocated to shooting practice, in addition to eight hours of training. In practice, the shooting lasts about two hours and consists of firing 17 rounds with a 1964-model AK-47 assault rifle – including five blanks. There are no lessons in ballistics, aiming or throwing grenades, as listed in the official program.

The only grenade ‘throwing’ takes place during the so-called ‘tactical training’ in which platoons are ordered by an elderly reservist officer to ‘storm’ an enemy position on the beach belonging to the Naval Academy. The enemy positions are imaginary.

Even more absurd, after the ‘grenade throwing’ the volunteers imitate a melee attack… of the shoreline, ‘hitting’ the sea with the buts of their rifles and stabbing the water with their bayonets, to the amusement of nearby cadets training in seafaring.

One of the most absurd moments of the training was the mock “storming” of an enemy fortification by the shoreline which ended up with a fake bayonet charge against the sea itself. Photo: Martin Dimitrov.

No better prepared

There is little training in terms of first aid or Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Protection.

The first aid exercises are no different from the Red Cross training would-be drivers receive.

As for the specialised protection classes, it is like going back 50 years, with equipment (gas masks, bandages etc.) produced in the 1960s and literally falling apart. And these are not the oldest tools volunteers are equipped with – the winner in this category is a First World War German model trench shovel produced in, wait for it… 1915.

If there are two things that the army teaches effectively, they are complacency and waiting:

Waiting for the next orders (usually standing still), waiting for the canteens, waiting for the next class etc. is the norm. And while in private, commanders and volunteers express their dissatisfaction with the training, in groups they act as if there are no problems.

Of course, the picture is not entirely grim – many of the younger people definitely improved their self-discipline during the training and, albeit reluctantly, followed the orders and did the punishment junior commanders imposed.

Also, mixing with people of different backgrounds and outside my personal central Sofia bubble was a revealing and sobering experience. Observing the dedication and compassion with which junior commanders treated the members of the platoon also gave hope for the future of the Bulgarian officer class.

Yet, this is far from enough to make the training worthwhile.

Neither I nor any of the more dedicated volunteers felt more ready to serve their country, especially not in terms of skills. And I definitely do not feel that the objectives of the basic training prepare adequately for the challenges the Bulgarian Army faces in the 21st century.

So, before changing the law and extending the period of the training, the Defence Ministry would be wise to consider these issues.

Martin Dimitrov is BIRN’s correspondent from Bulgaria.

The opinions expressed in the Comment section are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect the views of BIRN.