Do you think sixteen year olds are able to fight and be drafted into the military ?

[Progressivism]

I believe they are old enough to vote.I don't think they are emotionally capable of fighting in American wars, but I'm not sure if in terms of physical ability they are.Aren't people physically developing earlier and earlier now ? They drafted eighteen year olds to fight in World War Two didn't they ?

I'm asking due to curiosity and the fact that I will turn sixteen in a Year and a few days.

Edit:And yes,I'm supposed to be at school now but I'm not.

[TwilightGardener]

1. No--sixteen is not old enough to be drafted, won't happen. Now, go to school!

[kdmorris]

2. While I might agree that physically, they develop earlier

I don't think that emotionally/mentally they develop earlier. I think that some 16 year olds are capable of looking past who is the most popular and understanding the issues, but I don't think that all of them are. I don't even think that all 18 year olds can do it, but do not support raising the voting age.

I've raised 3 daughters, who are all adults now and, at 16, they would have voted for president the same as they would for American Idol (except for possibly my youngest daughter). And, to me, voting should be more serious than that. You can't vote for someone because they are pretty or "you can have a beer with them", though it seems like our elections have become popularity contests.

As far as "supposed to be in school", unless you have a really good reason for not being in school, you support my theory. Education is one thing that teenagers do not seem to value but should. Would you vote for someone who said that they would do away with mandatory schooling from 5-16?

[Progressivism]

6. I'm homeschooled now.

"As far as "supposed to be in school", unless you have a really good reason for not being in school, you support my theory. Education is one thing that teenagers do not seem to value but should. Would you vote for someone who said that they would do away with mandatory schooling from 5-16?"

No, but there would be a lot of weight lifted from our education system if it was non-compulsory.

"Another dominant voice of the past few years calling for the abolition of the compulsory, universal publicly-funded school system is that of John Taylor Gatto. He argues that the real (but hidden or overlooked) purpose of schooling is to produce an easily manageable, obedient workforce to serve employers in a mass production economy. For evidence he points to the incessant bells which fragment and control a child's time at school (like factory worker's time is fragmented and controlled), and an overemphasis, if not hysteria, for testing, which ensures that adults such as teachers will dictate the worth of a child and her educational progress. Real education is not the intent, Gatto claims, as a very well educated populace would be more difficult to control.

Gatto’s landmark, semi-formal and extremely thorough analysis of the educational system of the United States, The Underground History of American Education, identifies many of the key individuals, organizations, events and crises (both happenstance and manufactured) that forged the United States educational system into its current form. He thinks that modern compulsory schooling suppresses freedom of choice, serves to maintain the sociopolitical order and keeps real power in the hands of a small elite caste. In the words of Gatto:

"Spare yourself the anxiety of thinking of this school thing as a conspiracy, even though the project is indeed riddled with petty conspirators. It was and is a fully rational transaction in which all of us play a part. We trade the liberty of our kids and our free will for a secure social order and a very prosperous economy. It's a bargain in which most of us agree to become as children ourselves, under the same tutelage which holds the young, in exchange for food, entertainment, and safety. The difficulty is that the contract fixes the goal of human life so low that students go mad trying to escape it."

Gatto recommends that schools be non-compulsory, that they should never exceed a few hundred in size (and even that is too large for his liking) and that the sea of administrators be abolished (he points out that in 1991, New York City had more administrators than all the nations of Europe combined). He thinks standardized tests are a useless indicator of ability, wishing students to be assessed strictly on performance. He wants district school boards to be abolished in the process of decentralizing schooling, allowing local citizen management boards. He wants to see children engaged in real tasks with meaningful benefits of the work they do, and he would like them to have choice in what they do. He wants tax credits, vouchers, and other methods employed to encourage a diverse mix of “school logics” to take hold, for he thinks that there is no one right way to teach a person, and that cramming everyone into the same mold is asinine. He wants subjects abolished, and thinks schooling needs to be largely arranged around themes, claiming that interdisciplinary work is more reflective of real world problem solving. Gatto also calls for the abolishment of teacher certification requirements, so that anyone can teach who wants to. With compulsion and certification gone, anyone who has something valuable to teach and is able to will have the chance, while those who aren’t effective teachers won’t attract students (Gatto, 2003)."

Oh, and I do value education very well and I think I may go all the way to a Ph.D .

[kdmorris]

25. Awesome news!

Then you may be one of the ones that is mentally/emotionally prepared to vote at 16.

(I home schooled all my daughters, too. The 18 year old graduated in April of this year).

[old mark]

3. There is no draft law in effect now, but to answer your questions:

Will 16 year olds ever be drafted? Not in this country unless some invading army has occupied about half of it.

Can 16 year olds be soldiers? Certainly.In many countries, 16 year old people and younger are guerrilla fighters, etc, and in many private armies and engaged in much more brutal fighting than any "real" army ever sees.
18 year olds were drafted and served in Vietnam, and WWII,and many enlisted voluntarily at 17, which was the minimum age at the time.(Parent's consent was required.) I do know of at least one kid who told the Army he was 18 and enlisted at 14. He became a senior officer and writer and famous critic of the Army's policies, Col. David Hackworth.

Emotionally, I don't believe 16 year olds are ready to vote, but some people in their 60's aren't either.

Happy birthday, kid.
Get the fuck off my lawn.

mark

[dysfunctional press]

4. sixteen is NOT old enough to vote...or fight.

sorry. :eyes:

[tammywammy]

5. +1 n/t

[gratuitous]

7. Sure

We sentence 16-year-olds to life in prison, and even death. Why not start throwing them into the maw of the American wehrmacht? The valuable children of America (scions of the best families like the Bushes) will never be called up, so we won't risk their contribution to our society. And the poorest 16-year-olds with the worst prospects, will self-select because we absolutely will not fashion a society that will offer them anything.

[msongs]

8. 16 year olds are quite capable of vicious fighting and murder nt

[FSogol]

9. Yeah, I knew EVERYTHING when I was 16 too.

:eyes:

[izquierdista]

10. You may have a belief, but it's without a perspective

There is a reason that cultures put some sort of age limit on voting, drinking alcohol, serving in the military, etc. It's because of a collective feeling (among adults) that in looking back, they weren't ready for such responsibility until they were some particular age. Since you are not yet fifteen, your belief is not tempered by being able to look back in the past.

There is some research to support this, as it has been found that people who start drinking or smoking in their early or pre-teens have much more of an addiction problem with it than do people who wait until their late teens or early 20's to start. Although physical growth stops about mid-teens, the mind has not matured to the adult state, and mid to late teens have much poorer risk-benefit reasoning than adults. Put simply, they still do impulsive and foolish things that might be dangerous. Unfortunately, the military takes full advantage of this youthful naivete; they give them a gun and tell them to go out on patrol knowing full well that the kid's faculty for assessing dangers is likely to get him killed.

I think that the draft should start at age 40, with the rich called up first. I think if that were the case, a lot fewer armed conflicts would be fought.

[shadowknows69]

11. A) Get thee to school so you don't have to join

B)No.
C)Welcome to DU for however long that is.

[surrealAmerican]

12. This really isn't a question of physical ability.

If it were, there are many ten-year-olds who could fight, but I think we would all have a problem with the idea of drafting them.

Perhaps the sixteen-year-olds you personally know are emotionally and socially mature enough to be in the military, but most people that age are not. Most of them lack the maturity necessary for voting too.

[slackmaster]

13. Generally no, but my stepfather lied about his age and joined the Navy when he was 15

The minimum age for enlistees in 1934 was 16.

He re-enlisted in 1938 planning to serve one more four-year tour and then get out. But the war changed his plans, and he ended up retiring as a Senior Chief in 1956. After that he got a job a Convair as an electronic systems design engineer and worked there until his final retirement.

[unhappycamper]

14. The military is not quite like playing Call to Duty.

Have you ever smelled burning shitters?

Have you ever experienced a rocket attack? Or a mortar attack? Or a ground attack?

Have you ever seen a buddy of yours with his face blown off?

Have you ever seen a stack of dead bodies?

Have you ever invaded a foreign country?



I've done them all and cannot recommend that anyone should join the Army and see the world.

[Bigmack]

15. What you said....

and more.

Progressivism... if you really are 16... if you want to get a LOT older, just join the combat arms part of our military. I mean a LOT older. You'll be an old man, physically and mentally, when you get out.

Kids invariably think that if they get wounded, it will be in the shoulder. Keep this picture in mind, Progressivism.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

16. well stated

[trumad]

17. No--- We're not the Khmer Rouge.

[Brickbat]

18. Are they able to? Maybe some. Should they be? No.

Not sure what you're looking for here.

[whatchamacallit]

19. Hell no! They should only send old people to fight.

Everybody would get tired quickly, and therefore be more willing to resolve their differences non-violently...

[Cid_B]

22. Just for you...

A nice e-mail from my grandmother about seniors in the service...

Drafting Guys over 60 ---- this is funny & obviously written by a Former Soldier -


New Direction for any war: Send Service Vets over 60!

I am over 60 and the Armed Forces thinks I'm too old to track down terrorists. You can't be older than 42 to join the military. They've got the whole thing ass-backwards. Instead of sending 18-year olds off to fight, they ought to take us old guys. You shouldn't be able to join a military unit until you're at least 35.

For starters: Researchers say 18-year-olds think about sex every 10 seconds. Old guys only think about sex a couple of times a day, leaving us more than 28,000 additional seconds per day to concentrate on the enemy.

Young guys haven't lived long enough to be cranky, and a cranky soldier is a dangerous soldier. 'My back hurts! I can't sleep, I'm tired and hungry' We are impatient and maybe letting us kill some asshole that desperately deserves it will make us feel better and shut us up for a while.

An 18-year-old doesn't even like to get up before 10 a.m. Old guys always get up early to pee so what the hell. Besides, like I said, 'I'm tired and can't sleep and since I'm already up, I may as well be up killing some fanatical S-of-a-B....

If captured we couldn't spill the beans because we'd forget where we put them. In fact, name, rank, and serial number would be a real brainteaser.

Boot camp would be easier for old guys. We're used to getting screamed and yelled at and we're used to soft food. We've also developed an appreciation for guns. We've been using them for years as an excuse to get out of the house, away from the screaming and yelling.

They could lighten up on the obstacle course however. I've been in combat and didn't see a single 20-foot wall with rope hanging over the side, nor did I ever do any pushups after completing basic training.

Actually, the running part is kind of a waste of energy, too. I've never seen anyone outrun a bullet.

An 18-year-old has the whole world ahead of him. He's still learning to shave, to start up a conversation with a pretty girl. He still hasn't figured out that a baseball cap has a brim to shade his eyes, not the back of his head.

These are all great reasons to keep our kids at home to learn a little more about life before sending them off into harm's way.

Let us old guys track down those dirty rotten coward terrorists. The last thing an enemy would want to see is a couple of million pissed off old farts with attitudes and automatic weapons who know that their best years are already behind them.

***How about recruiting Women over 50 ....with PMS or going through Menopause!!! You think Men have attitudes!!! Ohhhhhhhhhhhh my God!!! If nothing else, put them on border patrol....we will have it secured the first night!

[whatchamacallit]

23. LOL Awesome! (nt)

[La Lioness Priyanka]

20. what one can do, differs from what one should do

[madmom]

21. After my daughter telling me that the girls in her class at school voted for bush because

he was "cute" (she was a jr at the time) I say definitely NO as far as serving in the military I concede that to those in the know, but IMO that is also a big NO!

[readmoreoften]

24. No way.

Recent studies have shown that the brain doesn't physiologically mature until 21-22. I, personally, don't think anyone younger than 24 should be deployed.

[BeHereNow]

26. I'm calling your truancy officer!

Happy Birthday.
BHN

[One_Life_To_Give]

27. Mentally not ready for War

Maybe if you had grown up a Spartan you would be mentally prepared. But even in WW2 18yr olds always had older squad members, of like 26, playing big brother and watching out for them. And for this current crop of more Police action than war. Minimum age should be like 40.