I've long been in favor of two-year conscriptions for the USA. Doesn't have to be military. But that's another thread
Russians, man. A bunch of them used to hang out at Valhalla, the Rice U grad student pub. For those of you who don't know, it's infamous for it's ridiculously cheap beer. I haven't been in about ten years but I doubt it's much more than a dollar a cup even today. Back in 1999, it was 50 cents. So I went in there one Wednesday night and it was pretty empty. There was this one Russian dude in there drunk off his ass slamming beers as soon as he the bartender set them down. The only thing that slowed him down was that he was paying for each 50 cent beer with individual hand-written checks. You could tell he was having trouble with the Roman alphabet, too. So he'd get a beer, down the hatch, and spend the next five minutes trying to write checks for 50 cents. I finally took pity on him and gave him about $3 and told him to party on.