Factors motivating the choice of a military career in Hungary in the 1980s, in the light of life course interviews

The study deals with this particular form of the career choice decision along the lines of the career motivation of military officers entering the military in the 1980s. In the course of our research, we conducted life course interviews with ten former military officers, whose processing was carried out with the help of the identification of typologizable patterns of behavior in the given life situation. The majority of young people who choose a military career are already attracted to this profession in their elementary school years. However, another part of them only becomes interested in it much later, towards the end of high school. The background of early identification and pattern can often be a pattern carried by family or other close relatives, childhood book or film experiences. In such cases, the young person usually feels an attraction to certain external signs of identity (uniform, weapons).. Before the regime change, however, the social benefit of the career was a particularly important objective factor when choosing a career, as the military career functioned as a social mobility factor with its help.