Ehtiyat (Reserve)

Conscription is the military practice of ordering people by law to serve in the armed forces of a specific nation/country. Lebanon, was one of the many Arab countries that applied the following law until its abolishment on the 4th of May 2005 where a new conscription system was adopted, making for a six-month service, pledging to end conscription within two years. By the 10th of February 2007 the Lebanese “Service to the Flag” had officially ended, mainly due to finances : “a conscript may cost the government less than a professional soldier, but that a professionally trained volunteer would be more efficient in adapting to the army's ever-changing role and mission. For a professional soldier to be efficient, he needs benefits and incentives”... Ever since conscription got cancelled, memories of the experience were all what was left: visions, sounds, feelings, and emotions. Capturing the many faces of Lebanese conscription candidates with a hint of the law’s absence, the images below are memorials to the event that perhaps changed an individual’s life after going through a schedule of waking up early, learning, practicing and applying; the series is called Ehtiyat...