Basic Trope Description: A character betrays their way out of mandatory military service by feigning an excuse.
- Straight:
- Bob injects himself with glucose and wears a borrowed insuline pump before his examination in the induction office to fake diabetes.
- Bob is examined before entering mandatory military service, but gets out of service by Obfuscating Insanity.
- Bob and Charlie act lovey-dovey with each other in the induction office and are exempt due to seeming gay.
- When called up for conscription, Bob leaves for the neighboring state Troperia.
- Bob commits theft to get imprisoned - and therefore not drafted.
- Bob hires Albert, an experienced mercenary, to serve his time in the military for him.
- Exaggerated:
- Everyone in the cast got out of military service in different ways.
- Bob literally cuts off all his limbs to avoid military service.
- When his time for conscription comes, Bob literally leaves for outer space as soon as he can.
- The country has conscription, but everyone in the army is a professional soldier, since everyone dodges the draft.
- Downplayed: Bob feigns autism to get assigned to the rear instead of real combat.
- Justified:
- Bob is a pacifist and believes conscription to be wrong in general.
- Bob's religion urges followers to stay out of anything about the secular state at all costs, what of course includes the draft.
- When he would in fact go to war, he would fight in a war of aggression his country started. He has severe moral objections against fighting for an invading army.
- Bob has a family to support and needs to stay at home for this.
- Bob is just lazy or a Dirty Coward.
- Inverted: Bob actively actively lies about how healthy he is and doctors his medical records to appear healthy, absolutely denies any possible homosexuality while showing off extremely grandiose acts of homophobia, and adopts the most convincing Mask of Sanity he could possibly muster upin the hopes that he'll get volunteered.
- Subverted:
- To get out of military service, Bob feigns insanity. But the psychiatrists get behind his little charade because he accidentally drops it before leaving the examination room.
- Bob tries to get out by behaving Ax-Crazy. The examiners decide that he would be a very useful soldier.
- Bob allows himself to get imprisoned over a minor crime to dodge the draft, but ends up Trading Bars for Stripes.
- Double Subverted:
- Then Bob hands in a fake diagnosis of Compulsive Lying Disorder, and he is sent away without having to serve.
- Bob isn't the One-Man Army they expected, but is nevertheless Becoming the Mask, so they send him home for the sake of everyone's (including his own) safety.
- Enforced:
- Truth in Television
- The author wants to use this as an Establishing Character Moment for Bob (e. g. as a Dirty Coward, or a pacifist).
- Averted:
- Nobody in the work has to do anything with the army.
- The army has only volunteers, and also Bob volunteers.
- Zigzagged: Bob just doesn't seem to know whether he will follow the draft or not.
- Parodied: Bob is visibly pregnant, and his urine tests positive for pregnancy. He is accused of this trope due to the famous urban legend.
- Invoked: The preacher in Bob's church gives a sermon on the evils of warfare the Sunday before Bob has to go to the induction office, and this inspires him to dodge the draft.
- Exploited: Albert hires himself out to do mandatory military service in the place of his customers.
- Defied: Bob's attempt is found out due to a far too checkered medical history to be real.
- Lampshaded: "And don't believe too obvious signs of insanity. They're usually fake."
- Discussed: Bob and Charlie are soon to be drafted, and talk about their opportunities to get out of it.
- Conversed: "Would you dodge the draft too?"
- Deconstructed: The army gets far too less personnel. And Bob only dies horribly in his hometown's bombing instead of the rather fast death by gunshot that had awaited him on the battlefield.
- Reconstructed:
- Bob manages to survive the war thanks to this and lives on to reach 101 years, while all his friends who followed the draft die horribly on the battlefield.
- Bob is famous, and his Draft Dodging out of pacifistic reasons inspires others to also dodge the draft. The Government of his country has to leave the war due to getting too less soldiers.
- Played for Laughs: Bob steps into the examination room with a chicken on his head, talking absolute nonsense. He is immediately believed to be crazy.
- Played for Drama: Later in his life, Bob runs for the presidency. When his adversary finds out that he dodged the draft back in the war, his reputation takes a massive hit.
- Implied: Bob is at home while most young healthy men are off to war.
