"Very Easy"? Says who?

As my days of wearing green fatigues draw near, I keep getting comments
about how easy national service in Taiwan is nowadays with increasing
frequency...and guess what? Most of those comments were made by girls. Seriously...made me wonder which five star general died and made them
expert? It's not that such generalisations don't have some truth to
it, most of the time I would humor them and reply that " Yeah, it's
nothing compared to my uncle's time,when he served three years and
spent most of his time in Kinmen,a short swim away from the mainland."

But I can't help but feel slightly annoyed by how they say it so
matter-of-factly. And is that supposed to be comforting? I think that
it's perfectly fine if a guy who went through the military said something
like that, cos at least there's some basis of comparison (minus some
exaggeration, which guys tend to do when talking about their army days.
I'd say take a 20%-30% discount from what they say how tough it was and
you would arrive at more or less a more accurate situation.) The girls
seem always to have their sources:a friend's friend, classmate, etc...
But how can you say it so matter-of-factly when all you've based your
judgement on is hearsay?

I for one can't be sure, though the popular opinion seem to support these
generalisations. But the truth is that how hard military life would be
largely depends on your commander(and your luck). You can be in a tough
unit but still enjoy an easy time as a clerk. Or you can be in a supposedly
comfortable unit and live life as a living hell. I guess the only way to
tell for sure is after I finish it and trade military stories with other
dudes who've been through it(something guys do for the rest of their life:
talk about the few years they spend in the military and how tough they were).

As a male Taiwanese citizen I think I'm obliged to serve in the military as
the men before me did. That's more than I can say for most of the Taiwanese guys
I know in Singapore, always coming up with excuses like "I can't leave my
career(Oh...like the rest of us don't have careers)", "It's a waste of time",
etc...employing stall tactics and converting to Singapore citizenship for
the "convenience". The truth is that they just want to avoid their obligations
as much as possible. Why don't they just get it over and done with instead of
stalling it forever until they are too old and are no longer required to serve?

I think that you can't always take the easy way out in life. Besides, with all
the comments of how easy national service is these days, what are you guys
afraid of?

P.S. The result of my military posting by "lottery" is out. I'm going to serve
in the Republic of China Air Force.