Congratulations: You have lived long enough to cringe at the bad decisions you were seduced, dared, bullied, inspired or stoned enough to make as a teenager. Thousands of America’s children, however, are not so lucky. Almost 600,000 of America’s 1 million active and reserve soldiers enlisted as teens. The military lures these physiologically immature kids with a PR machine that would… return to article
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Reader Comments (8)Page 1 of 1 pages” A 2004 Pentagon database listed the number of 16- and 17-year-olds who applied for active service enlistment at 69,000 and 18-year-olds at 73,000. By 19, the count had dropped to 49,000 and by age 24 had plummeted to 9,700.”
Bullshit. 18 is the minimum age. Applying for and being accepted are completely different subjects.
Posted by texasindependent on May 15, 2007 at 6:12 PM Thank you for highlighting the problems of recruiting children under 18. JROTC programs violate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child that the US has signed, but NOT ratified. To ratify US has to scrap the military curricula from the Military Academies for Junior and Senior High School age groups (http://directory.google.com/Top/Reference/Education/K_through_12/
Private_Schools/Boarding_Schools/Military/), and the JROTC in schools. In any sports training have to start when the child is 10 or 12 years old for them to excel. But is it necessary to teach children, as you rightly pointed out , whose brain and mind are still forming, to fight wars. Could they not be allowed to wait till they are at least 18 for them to make the choice.
Posted by singam on May 16, 2007 at 7:20 AM Dear texasindi,
Please see the Pentagon document at
http://www.defenselink.mil/prhome/poprep2004/appendixa/a_01.html
you have to go to
http://www.defenselink.mil/prhome/poprep2004
then click on <content>
then go to <appendix A>and just an suggestion. how about next time you write in, you phrase your commnet something like: I was unable to find a source for the information and it seem wrong to me. Can you please tell me the source.
thanks so much,
texasindiBest,
terry
Posted by tallenvt on May 16, 2007 at 12:22 PM Attempting to join and being accepted are different subjects. The article glosses that huge gulf over in the typical progressive fashion. I agree the problems with rebel groups drafting 10 year old children as combat troops is serious. However the US military has strict guidelines regarding the requirements for recruits. The high school diploma requirement alone excludes underage recruits. Pardon my disgust with an obvious attempt at deception for political gain.
Posted by texasindependent on May 16, 2007 at 2:06 PM Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam asked me to post this:
US has signed the Convention on the right of the child
(CRC) but not ratified. US has signed and ratified the CRC
Optional Protocol on children in Armed conflict (CRCOPAC)
and sale of children. see
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/k2crc.htm
I have take this up with the UN Office on the protection of
children in the past. I was told that they are discussing
the matter and working on amendments to get US on board.
They are more interested in reigning in non-state actors.
This is also true with respect to the Ottawa mine ban
treaty. US, China, Pakistan - mainly mine producing states)
have not signed it. Sri Lanka has not signed it either.
Again the states want non-state actors to stop mining while
letting states to manufacture and mine!!! Thanks for your
interest on the children and protecting their rights
everywhere. Child labour, prostitution, slavery, denial of
education, health and nutrition, and abuse.
Ethir
The INGO that is trying to get State
and Non-State actors to ban mines is www.genevacall.org
Posted by tallenvt on May 16, 2007 at 4:38 PM I agree wholeheartedly with the notion that the armed force’s recruitment tactics are atrocious, misleading, manipulative, etc. But I really wonder whether declaring that being 18 is a brain disease is the best expression of our liberal selves. I mean, you mention the army lying to mothers and manipulating teachers too. Maybe the problem isn’t “impressionable youth” (although some youth certainly are), but the fact that all of us are impressionable sometimes and that is why lying and manipulating are bad behaviors across the board.
I’m 35, and I remember well the decisions I made when I was 18. They were pretty good, actually. The ones I made when I was 27—now THOSE were idiotic. And take a look at the decisions of the 40, 50, and 60 year olds who keep getting us into all these crazy wars in the first place!
Which brings us back to “brain science”. Everybody knows that the #1 truth about brain science is how little we know about how the brain works. Isn’t it at least possible that the reason that 18-year-olds’ brains are “still changing” is because they’re *learning* things? I mean, if “the mind is what the brain does” (the materialist scientific interpretation), it would stand to reason that all that education was causing *something* to change, and as a 35-year-old I would be the first to say that the intellectual curiosity of my age-mates has declined remarkably in the intervening years. Some people I know specifically go back to school so they can have intellectual conversations again—I wonder if their brains start “changing” again when they do that?
But the people who resolve conflict the best, without a doubt, are six-year-olds. At the day-care where I volunteer, I have discovered that you can break up any fight by just turning it into a game of tag. Suddenly, all the animosity is forgotten as they run around taking turns being “it”. With that in mind, I just don’t think writing off young people as mentally defective is the best way to move forward.
Dave
Minneapolis
Posted by davelwhite on May 17, 2007 at 5:01 PM tallenvt,
“A recent study headed by Jay Giedd of the National Institutes of Health using MRI scans shows that the brain of an 18-year-old is not fully developed,”
Apparently some brains take a whole lot longer. You may not realize just how many “children” exhibited outstanding competence during WW2. I have several friends who at the age of 18 to 20 commanded and led large groups, flew complicated aircraft, made life and death decisions daily.
Without their service it would not be likely for you to express your concern over our exploitation of the “child soldier”.
“In Junior ROTC, kids get uniforms, win medals, fire real guns and play soldier, while adults trained in psychological manipulation steer them toward the army.”
The Jr. ROTC program gave me a head start although I did not enlist until I was 21. To some of us patriotism is not repugnant. Do you actually get paid to write this drivel?
I suggest you direct your concerns toward the Muslim indoctrination which enlists kids as human bombs to the glory of Allah. Get those guys to sign your silly protocols. You should probably go in person to explain your views. I’m sure you will find a more sympathetic ear.
P.S. If you try to get them to do an MRI — watch out for an IED.
Posted by whattheheck on May 18, 2007 at 1:13 PM This article reminds me of a very similar one by Jennifer Wedekind I commented on a while ago. It was about how the ROTC and the military were engaged in the evil practice of trying to maintain their ranks. It featured a young JROTC cadet named Tarsha. I will reproduce my comments (edited for relevance) on that article here because they pretty much work for this article as well:
Jennifer in my opinion is operating from a false premise. She evidently thinks that there is something wrong with trying to get kids to consider a career in the military, and taking a long term approach to keeping it strong.
I doubt she would support a draft. Why is that she and so many like her have such disdain for doing what needs to be done to maintain a voluntary force? Does she think it’s something that’s going to just magically happen? Would she start a business and expect customers to come flocking to her door without doing any advertising, promotion, or enticement?
Upon re-reading the article by Ms. Wedekind, I find it to actually be somewhat more fair and balanced, to borrow a slogan, than at first glance. It’s actually more a praising of, than it is an indictment against, these youth programs…....
........“Staring straight ahead, she yells out an order to a squad of peers lined up in three perfect columns next to her. Having been in the military program for six years, Tarsha has earned the rank of captain and is in charge of the 28 boys and girls in her squad. This is Lavizzo Elementary School. Tarsha is 14.”
What an incredible accomplishment for a 14 year old. While most of her classmates are probably wasting their precious formative years worrying about what to watch on Teen Disney, this girl is learning about leadership and self-esteem. She’ll be light years ahead of the pack when she gets her first job at Burger King or baby-sitting. I know I’d be much more likely to trust her to look after my child than one of her ditzy friends, knowing that she’s learned a few things about leadership and responsibility. If she decides to go into the military, so what? It’s her choice. It’s not a bad choice, like Wedekind and so many here quite wrongly and bitterly imply.
“Tarsha, however, has already signed up. While she wants to be a lawyer and is not planning on joining the armed forces when she graduates, the 14-year-old says, “If I were to join the military, I would be ready for it.”Ā¯
So Tarsha is apparently pleased with what she’s gained from the program, but does’nt feel roped in by it. Hardly an indictment of the MSCC or the JROTC. She seems perfectly cognizant that she has a choice of whether or not to join the military. She comes across to me as someone empowered, not victimized. Take notice, N.O.W…...
.......All these attacks on the motives and methods of the military are quite nonsensical. People who did, or people who would have burned their draft cards in the 60s are now doing everything possible to insure that we are forced to reinstitute a non-voluntary force.
Posted by Natalie on Jun 5, 2005 at 8:48 PM
These two authors’ concern for the children is understandable, but I think they give them way too little credit. They and their parents will make an informed decision just fine and they don’t need it second guessed and demonized by a bunch of “no war no way” types.
Posted by Natalie on May 20, 2007 at 8:31 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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