The General Military Academy in Bucharest--usually called the Military Academy--is a four-year university-level school whose graduates receive regular officer commissions and who are expected to serve as career officers. It also offers mid-career command and staff types of courses. An advanced academy, the Military Technical Academy, requires that its applicants have a university degree; they may be military officers, but they are not required to have had military service or military education of any sort. The academy offers advanced degrees in military and aeronautical engineering and in a variety of other technical areas. Morale and Conditions of Service The mandatory tour of duty for basic ground and air force personnel was set at sixteen months in 1964. Naval conscripts and some air force personnel are required to serve two years. The length of extra service required of those who apply and are accepted for special training or who wish to become noncommissioned officers varies with the amount of training required, with the rank attained, or with the added responsibility of the new duty assignment; but it is accepted or rejected on a voluntary basis. Officers and noncommissioned officers serve voluntarily, and morale is usually satisfactory within those groups. The service experience of the noncommissioned-officer applicants and the long training period required of officer candidates assure that both leadership groups understand and freely accept the conditions of service before they assume their duty responsibilities. Conditions are reasonably good, and morale in the armed forces is not a source of unusual concern to the national leadership. There are few exhortations to put extra effort into political indoctrination; a large, heavily armed security force to counter a possibly unreliable army has not been created; and there are less elaborate ceremonial affairs involving the forces than is typical of the Eastern European countries. Romania has had compulsory military service at all times within the memory of the draft age group, and it is accepted as a routine fact of life. Exemptions from the draft are few, and a large proportion of them reflect upon the man because he cannot meet the qualifications for service. The tour of duty is brief. The standard of living in the country is low, and service life may offer some of the back-country young men the best opportunities for travel and excitement that they have yet experienced. Medicine Physicians required in the armed forces are ordinarily recruited from medical schools but may be called from their practices or from hospital residence assignments. They then attend a military medical institute in Bucharest for specialized instruction in procedures and practices that are peculiar to military medical work.