Mods, please allow me to +1 this post two or three times. You aren’t a kid if you can safely handle and fire a machine gun in combat. Damn well should be considered an adult, and be treated as such. These are grown a$$ men playing football and joining the military. Stop coddling them.
The VA is at the leading edge of behavioral health because it turns out a century of giving teenagers guns and telling them to go kill people wasn’t good for them.
Giving anyone a gun and telling them to go kill people isn’t good for them, regardless of age.
Bingo! Machine guns are just the tip of the iceberg. They’re also being trained to work on nuclear submarines and on the decks of aircraft carriers with their fellow crew members relying on them to follow high reliability principles and procedures without fail.
haha I can't believe this had to be said....my 18 y/o buddies who enlisted we're no more mature then me - we just took different paths. Now at early 30s they have become men and good fathers - but at 18-25 it was touch and go for all of us, regardless If we were serving or not. Just a silly statement.
Exactly. There are 14 year olds that are more mature than 40 year olds. This is why we as a society have selected a number that we feel is roughly when most people can be considered to be adults and they can make their own life decisions instead of having their parents/guardians do it for them. We do this because there is no test or physical development that states that a certain person is mature enough to be adult.
When I went to my son's graduation from Air Force basic training, we had an 'intro' meeting with a couple of officers, basically telling us the expectations they had for our kids. "You got concerned when you gave them the keys to the family car. We are going to put them in charge of multimillion dollar aircraft and systems. We don't worry about them, we don't have time. So we train them and teach them how to live with expectations." I was Army way back in the day, and we were as rowdy as any 18, 19 year olds. But when on duty and it 'mattered', we were absolutely professional, dependable and motivated.
Yeah, my buddy was in the Navy and in the Sub he said it was all business...but on leave/downtime it was all drinking and looking for girls.
First, thank you and your son for serving. My parents got a similar speech from a recruiter before I joined the USAF in ‘99. It’s pretty incredible to see the training and support you receive and how effective they are at helping you grow from being a kid to a man in a short amount of time. I needed that structure in my life at that time. It was the best decision I could have made, and it’s set me up for success with every other role I’ve taken since.
. If Joe were responsible, half the car dealers near post would be out of business.