Does military conscription reduce the distance between the ordinary citizen and the state? Decades after its abolition, numerous European policymakers from across the political spectrum advocate the reintroduction of conscription to foster civic-mindedness, despite a lack of empirical evidence in this respect. Leveraging quasi-random variation in conscription reforms across 15 European countries, we find that cohorts of men drafted just before its abolition display significantly and substantially lower institutional trust than cohorts of men who were just exempted. At the same time, ending conscription had no effect on institutional trust among women from comparable cohorts. We show that this "civil-military'' gap concerns diffuse support, and unfolds through the formation of homogenous views. As such, we argue that reintroducing a compulsory military service may not produce the effects anticipated by its advocates.