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16? Sixteen is still a child. To make a child into a child soldier is just wrong. even IF it's just training towards being a soldier. How is the child trained? Does he play war games all day on his play station, practicing to fire drones?
Furthermore, I believe that we have reached the stage where enlistment should be strictly voluntary. I know that I would not aim a deadly weapon at any person just because my govt tpld me to do it, far less pull the trigger. If some politician is that mad at another country, let him do the shooting.
I would rather sit in jail. I've always admired Muhammad Ali because he made the choice to sit in jail. War is primitive; negotiation is NOW. Maybe in the future, we will be able to read each other's minds/hearts and know that there is a divine spark in all of us.

People mature at different ages. A 16 year-old girl, in fact, has sailed round the world solo. Young recruits to the army, however, are often mixed up in the head when they join. The myth that they can be moulded into shape prevails but is largely nonsense - the large number of ex-soldiers who populate our prisons is evidence of this. The sad truth is that a significant number of these young recruits cannot wait until they get an opportunity to kill.

I've just remembered "Deepcut Barracks", where a number of young recruits were found to have committed suicide. An independent investigator, however, claimed that in one case the victim would have needed, I think, an arm about 12 feet long with a number of ball joints to have pulled the trigger.

I'm with the Friends on this one. Perhaps if it was easier for youngsters to leave the army the Deepcut deaths might not have happened.

I thought it was interesting in that I didn't see them playing at heartstrings and whining. It was a fairly cold (I don't mean unfeeling) statement on where the UK was at variance with (at least in their view) human rights legislation as opposed to why kids shouldn't go to war.

I have real difficulty as both my ex's brothers joined up as soon as they could (16 and 17) and have both been in the army as career people for more than 15 years Neither would change a thing and both think the best thing is to join young.

So do we let people who are old enough to create life train to take life, maybe that is their decision.

Newlach,

I know how cruel the army can be but I am not convinced what happened at deepcut was an age thing, older soldiers have been driven to extreme behaviour too, it might be that we just don't understand the pressure we pile on these people.

I find it a little amusing that such a well reasoned statement about the military is coming from an organisation that has a reputation (accurate or not) for being full of pacifists.

Whilst I agree with what the Quakers are saying, the military is a good option for school leavers with minimal academic inclination and no other occupational prospects; they provide a reasonable income, provision of all basic needs and, if required, training in all kids of qualifications. To remove this entirely will subject a lot of 16 year olds to a couple of years of unemployment, destroying their work ethic entirely.

@4.At 19:52 16th Jun 2011, Natman :
I agree.

Re Natman's 4 -

To remove this entirely will subject a lot of 16 year olds to a couple of years of unemployment, destroying their work ethic entirely.

Ryan,

If it's a spade, it's a spade. They're either in the military or they're not. Besides, letting them get used to an easier life as a civvie and then dumping them straight into basic training is going to result in a large number of disillusioned drop-outs, one of the reason the military offers such good training is that they're guaranteed to get a return on their investment. Better to get them into the mindset asap, if the Quakers are advocating that their time as a civilian is identical to their time as someone who's enlisted, then why split hairs?