Army is called the 'school for men', and in contemporary Finnish culture this carries specific meanings. In Finland all young men have to choose either military service (6-12 months) or a longer alternative civil service (13 months); release because of health reasons is given to a good 10 percent. More than 80 percent of the Finnish men go into the army, which is a greater percentage than in most European countries. For women military service has been optional since 1995, but only one percent takes this option today. Going to the army, then, is an important issue in the transition to adulthood for every young Finnish man, as well as an important period for further education. It is however, a question very little researched by youth researchers or educational researchers. Tuula Gordon and I realised the centrality of the army in young people's thoughts when we interviewed young men and women at the age of 18 in our joint ethnographically grounded longitudinal life history research 'Tracing transitions: follow?up study of post?16 youth'. We learned to know these young people when they started their secondary school, aged 12-13 (e.g. Gordon, Holland & Lahelma 2000) and have reinterviewed them at the ages of 18 and 20. I have earlier on conducted an analysis of the expectations of young men before the army, an reflections of young women considering military service also were explored (Lahelma 2000). I suggested that in young people's transitions to adulthood military service acts as a gendered divider in which Finnish, heterosexual masculinities are celebrated. The army gets positive appraisal in considerations concerning its self?evident connotations to fighting for the fatherland. Practical values are emphasised however, when young men talk concretely about their expectations. My aim in this paper is to go further, to discuss the reflections of young men at the age of 20 and relate them to their earlier expectations. At that point many of them already have been in the army. My focus is in exploring what kinds of masculinities are discussed when talking about experiences, and how they are evaluated. How differences and communalities are built in young men's speech? My findings suggests that differences are discussed between men and the women who participate in military service; between Finns and foreigners; between those who participate in the army and those who choose civil service; between those who are childish and those who have the correct attitude; between those who manage it and those who do not. Some young men who have taken the longer military service for officers (12 months) repeat the evaluations of their educators, whist some with shorter service rather make fun with the speech of the officers. Along with differences, young men also seem to find communalities in the army that cross social and educational borders. Gordon, Tuula, Holland, Janet & Lahelma, Elina (2000) Making Spaces: Citizenship and Difference in Schools. London: Macmillan & New York: St Martin's Press.Lahelma, Elina (2000) Going into the Army: a gendered step in transition to adulthood, Young 4/2000, 2-15.