Army re-emphasizes combat age restrictions

[CommunityEditor]

The Army has instructed field commands to make sure they are in compliance with an international treaty to prevent children from participating in combat.

As a signatory to the Child Soldier Protocol of the 1992 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the U.S. has agreed to not force anyone under age 18 into military service, or to employ such soldiers in operations involving direct combat.

To ensure compliance, the Army established a policy in 1993 that prohibits the assignment or deployment of child soldiers to duty stations outside the continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and U.S. territories and possessions.

The policy applies to soldiers of the Regular Army, Army National Guard and Army Reserve, with no provision for waivers.

While the assignment branches of the Human Resources Command routinely screen the ages of soldiers who are placed on overseas assignment orders, the command has no visibility of soldiers who are assigned individually or in unit sets for deployment by field commands.

In a mid-January directive to all commands, the Office of the G1 at the Pentagon instructed installation commanders to make sure their overseas processing centers bar the deployment of soldiers under age 18.

While the Army allows the voluntary recruitment of 17-year-olds, such young people only can serve with the consent of their parents or legal guardians.

Less than 10 percent of the 80,000 soldiers recruited annually by the Army are 17 years old, according to Recruiting Command.

“The average age of recruits runs 21 to 22 years old,” said Douglas Smith, USAREC spokesman.


Article: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/01/army_child_012409w/

[SgtMac6]

A good rule that makes sense, but what about soldiers over 60? Yes there are quite a few in the guard and reserves. We're sending gramma and granpa to war. Outstanding soldiers, proud to serve, but age does put limitations on your abilities. What do you think?

[Silver Fox]

From http://www.brookings.edu/interviews/2006/0612humanrights_singer.aspx


The practice of child soldiers is far more widespread, and more important, than most realize. There are as many as 300,000 children under the age of 18 presently serving as combatants around the globe. Their average age is just over 12 years old. The youngest ever was an armed 5 year old in Uganda. The youngest ever terrorist bomber a 7 year old in Colombia. Roughly 30% of the armed forces that employ child soldiers also include girl soldiers. Underage girls have been present in armed groups in 55 countries.

Children now serve in 40% of the world's armed forces, rebel groups, and terrorist organizations and fight in almost 75% of the world's conflicts; indeed, in the last five years, children have served as soldiers on every continent but Antarctica. An additional half million children serve in armed forces not presently at war. The children are often abducted to fight and participate in all the full horrors of war; indeed they are sometimes forced to carry out atrocities that adults shy away from.

and...


British forces have detained more than 60 juveniles during their operations in Iraq, while U.S. forces captured 107 Iraqi juveniles determined to be "high risk" security threats, holding most at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.

and...


In the summer of 2004, radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr directed a revolt that consumed the primarily Shia south of Iraq, with the fighting in the holy city of Najaf being particularly fierce. Observers noted multiple child soldiers, some as young as 12 years old, serving in Sadr's "Mahdi" Army that fought pitched battles with U.S. and British forces. Indeed, Sheikh Ahmad al-Shebani, al Sadr's spokesman, publicly defended the use of children, stating, "This shows that the Mahdi are a popular resistance movement against the occupiers. The old men and the young men are on the same field of battle." A 12 year old fighter in the group commented, "Last night I fired a rocket-propelled grenade against a tank. The Americans are weak. They fight for money and status and squeal like pigs when they die. But we will kill the unbelievers because faith is the most powerful weapon." Coalition forces also have increasingly faced child soldiers in the Sunni Triangle as well. Marines fighting in the battle to retake Falluja in November 2004 reported numerous instances of being fired upon by "children with assault rifles."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_use_of_children?bcsi_scan_4CE1AECAB2BE800 F=cbIVkeMb+eq/Dk2Igaiahg0AAABc9IoB#World_War_II

The minimum age to join the British Army is 16 and a half; parental permission is required for those under the age of 18.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article444958.ece

Doomed youth: how the tragedy of 250,000 boy soldiers in the trenches was covered up
By Michael Evans, Defence Editor
THE British Government deliberately covered up the recruitment of a quarter of a million child soldiers who fought and died during the First World War, research has found.
The under-age warriors were all below the legal enlistment age of 18, some of them as young as 14, according to the study of wartime records. All were sent to the front and nearly half of them were killed and injured. One was even shot for desertion.

In one case, a 17-year-old, Cecil Withers, now 106 and one of the few former boy soldiers who is still alive, was so desperate to fight for his country that he enlisted under a false name without telling his parents. They only learnt where he was after his father promised, in a personal advertisement in The Times, not to seek his discharge.

In another case, that of Abraham Bevistein, one of more than 300 soldiers executed by firing squad after “deserting” from his unit, who was listed as aged 21 when he died, was in fact only 17, according to his newly discovered East London primary school records.

The new evidence of wholesale recruitment of under-age soldiers, and the blind eye shown by the Government of Herbert Asquith, the Prime Minister, has been revealed to coincide with the 90th anniversary of the start of the First World War.

A documentary made by Testimony Films and to be broadcast tonight on Channel 4, called Britain’s Boy Soldiers, charts the “scandal” of the under-age recruits; and the struggle of Arthur Markham, a Liberal MP, who tried to persuade the War Office, run by Lord Kitchener, to secure the return of tens of thousands of boys from the battlefields of Europe.

The programme reveals the way in which the Government stonewalled Markham and developed a detailed policy to frustrate those who raised concerns about recruitment.

However, until conscription was introduced in 1916, and with it tighter controls on the age of soldiers, his efforts were in vain. He accused the Government of fraud and deceit but he was a lone voice and was ignored. In August 1916, at the age of 50, he had a heart attack and died.

Britain had declared war on August 14, 1914, following the shooting of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by a Serbian assassin on June 28 of that year. The under-age soldiers were recruited after the famous “Your Country Needs You” appeal from Lord Kitchener, which led to 750,000 men joining up in just two months.

Richard van Emden, a First World War historian who carried out the research for the documentary, said he had uncovered records which showed that an estimated 120,000 boy soldiers had been killed or wounded.

“The Commonwealth War Graves Commission wrote to all the families of soldiers killed in the war, asking for personal details, including age, and 50 per cent returned the forms, so it’s possible to estimate the true figure for the number of under-age recruits,” he said.

Cecil Withers was one of those caught up in the fervour generated by Kitchener’s call to arms. Mr Withers, who celebrated his 106th birthday last week, recalled: “They never asked for the (birth) certificate at all, you joined up, you said just anything and lots of boys of 15 said they were 20 and 19 — shocking, you know.”

He told the recruiting sergeant he was called Harrison, believing it to be the name of the then Editor of The Times, because two of his sisters worked at the newspaper (the Editor was actually Geoffrey Robinson).

He also gave a different address from his family home in Brockley, southeast London. “Nobody questioned it. Of course they must have known secretly that many would have joined up under-age and a lot of poor devils joined up to get something to eat,” he said.

He did not dare tell his parents because he knew he would have been sent home. “That would have been humiliating, being turned out . . . It looks like treachery to your parents, so either you have got to be a traitor to your country or a traitor to your parents,” he said.

Before leaving for France, he wrote to his father, asking him not to call for his discharge and to confirm this by placing a pledge in The Times.

His father put an advertisement in The Times on Friday, March 10, 1916. It read: “All’s well, will not apply for discharge if you send full address: past forgiven.” Mr Withers said: “I took his word for it and as soon as I could I went home on leave to my father’s house and they were glad to see me and didn’t reprimand me at all. I was relieved to know that I’d told them where I was because I knew jolly well that if I hadn’t told them they’d have never known where I was.”

Private Withers was sent to France with the 74th Fusiliers and went straight to the trenches.

Many of the young boys who fought in the trenches were shot as cowards.

The documentary reconstructs the story of Private Bevistein, a 16-year-old who lived in East London. David Lister, who is writing a book on Private Bevistein, said he had traced his school register which showed he was born on April 18, 1898, making him only 16 when he enlisted in September 1914.

Private Bevistein was wounded in the back at Givenchy in December 1915 and was treated in hospital. Within weeks of returning to the front, a grenade burst close to him. He was seen by a medical officer who ordered him back to the trenches, but he failed to obey and was executed on March 20, 1916. He was recorded as being 21, but was still only 17.

One of the youngest boy soldiers was Horace Iles from Sheffield, who enlisted at 14 with the Leeds Pals, and died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Florrie, his sister, wrote to him imploring him to tell the Army his true age. “My dear Horace, for goodness sake tell them how old you are, I’m sure they will send you back,” she wrote.

Her letter was returned from the front with the words: “Killed in action.” Horace Giles died at the age of 16.


Then of course....


After the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Audie Murphy (then just 15 years old) tried to enlist in the military, but the services rejected him for being underage.[4] In June 1942, shortly after his 16th birthday (sister Corrine adjusted his birth date so he appeared to be 18 and legally allowed to enlist, and his war memoirs, To Hell and Back, maintained this misinformation, leading to later confusion and contradictory statements as to his year of birth), Murphy was accepted into the United States Army,[3][4] at Greenville,[6] after being turned down by the Marines and the paratroopers for being too short (5'5"/1.65 m)[2] and of slight build.

Which resulted in...


Medal of Honor citation
The official U.S. Army citation for Audie Murphy's Medal of Honor reads:[1][7]

Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Company B 15th Infantry, 3rd Infantry Division.
Place and date: Near Holtzwihr France, January 26, 1945.
Entered service at: Dallas, Texas. Birth: Hunt County, near Kingston, Texas, G.O. No. 65, August 9, 1944.
Citation: Second Lt. Murphy commanded Company B, which was attacked by six tanks and waves of infantry. 2d Lt. Murphy ordered his men to withdraw to a prepared position in a woods, while he remained forward at his command post and continued to give fire directions to the artillery by telephone. Behind him, to his right, one of our tank destroyers received a direct hit and began to burn. Its crew withdrew to the woods. 2d Lt. Murphy continued to direct artillery fire, which killed large numbers of the advancing enemy infantry. With the enemy tanks abreast of his position, 2d Lt. Murphy climbed on the burning tank destroyer, which was in danger of blowing up at any moment, and employed its .50 caliber machine gun against the enemy. He was alone and exposed to German fire from three sides, but his deadly fire killed dozens of Germans and caused their infantry attack to waver. The enemy tanks, losing infantry support, began to fall back. For an hour the Germans tried every available weapon to eliminate 2d Lt. Murphy, but he continued to hold his position and wiped out a squad that was trying to creep up unnoticed on his right flank. Germans reached as close as 10 yards, only to be mowed down by his fire. He received a leg wound, but ignored it and continued his single-handed fight until his ammunition was exhausted. He then made his way back to his company, refused medical attention, and organized the company in a counterattack, which forced the Germans to withdraw. His directing of artillery fire wiped out many of the enemy; he killed or wounded about 50. 2d Lt. Murphy's indomitable courage and his refusal to give an inch of ground saved his company from possible encirclement and destruction, and enabled it to hold the woods which had been the enemy's objective.[1][7]

Just throwing a few sides of the argument out there.

[CHASTAIN]

A good rule that makes sense, but what about soldiers over 60? Yes there are quite a few in the guard and reserves. We're sending gramma and granpa to war. Outstanding soldiers, proud to serve, but age does put limitations on your abilities. What do you think?

Consider this...

My grandparents are in thier 70s and 80s, my great-grandparents generally lived to their 80s and 90s, and the fact that the life expectancy is going up everyday, make me pretty certain that when I get to 60, I'll still be in fairly good health., barring any accidental/combat related debilitating injury.

The mandatory retirement age (which applies to AC and RC, btw, and is currently approx 63) will catch me long before my health does. The military has established physical fitness testing to ensure the fitness of soldiers, and as long a soldier can surpass the that requirement, and has the mental ability to execute the duties of their assigned office, age should be irrelevant.

I think your statement is uninformed, and offensive to people who plan on living long health lives... How long do you plan on being healthy and happy?

Are you gonna quit when you get 60? I'd rather fight beside grey-headed soldier who displays committment and experience, than a young one who quits.