ng higher priority than basic military
duty. A somewhat larger proportion, or about 75 percent, of the
nineteen-year-olds are in satisfactory physical condition. Most of them
are drafted; a turnover of one-third of the 150,000-man regular armed
forces each year would require nearly all of the group. Because there is
very little room for flexibility, a young man's education is interrupted
unless he was actually enrolled in a university or college before he
reached the age of eighteen. In this case he continues his education but
serves his military obligation upon completion of his education.
Occupational deferments were eliminated by law in 1970, and other
deferments are given infrequently and reluctantly. Young men unfit for
military duty or for work in the Construction Troops, but who are fit to
earn a living in some other work, pay a military tax (see ch. 15).

Those who have had military service and who have not reached the age of
fifty are considered reserves. Officers remain in the reserve until the
age of sixty. Various factors--primarily occupational situations,
physical condition, and lack of reserve training--operate to erode this
force, and those considered useful, or trained, reserves constitute
one-half or less of the group. Most of the some 250,000 men released in
the latest five-year period, however, are available, physically fit, and
familiar with the weapons and equipment in use by the armed forces.

Training

In common with its Warsaw Pact allies, Bulgaria uses equipment that is
produced or designed in the Soviet Union or that is compatible with
Soviet designs. The training program is patterned after that of the
Soviet army because the Soviet equipment dictates the training required
to maintain and operate it, and joint maneuvers participated in by any
or all of the pact forces make it necessary to employ standard
procedures and tactics.

The program is carried on in an annual cycle. Immediately after
induction a conscript's time is spent in so-called individual or basic
training. Physical exercise is rigorous, and the soldier is initiated
into the care and use of individual weapons, military drill, and the
various aspects of military existence with which he had not been
familiar and to which he must learn to adjust. He also learns individual
actions that may become necessary in group or combat situations, ranging
from personal combat techniques to first aid treatment for battle wounds
or exposure