*****SOTU OFFICIAL THREAD***** -- Thread 2

[kurt_cagle]

214. Oddly, I disagree

Kids drop out for many reasons; drugs, boredom, working too young, broken home life, poor education earlier forcing struggling in more advanced classes ...

Basic training can help to provide discipline and structure, can establish a degree of camaraderie, can give them remedial training in a focused environment and give them skills to make them more competitive. Keep these cadets out of combat zones, and at the age of eighteen they can either choose to re-up (possibly with an automatic jump in pay grade to E-2) or can gain GI benefits towards higher education and a possible career as an officer. If you focus on 16 to 17 year-olds, what this would also do is provide a lot of more basic level support tasks that ordinarily enlistees at 18 would typically be assigned, freeing them up for more advanced work (and training).

In addition to the benefits there, it has larger societal benefits. It's better OTJ training than working at fast food restaurants (which in many cases are now attracting more seniors on fixed incomes who also bring considerably more experience to these places - and consider that until comparatively recently it was not at all uncommon for people in their 60s and 70s to work at restaurants), it may very well provide these kids exposure to technologies and areas of interest that they wouldn't be exposed to in school, and it means that the soldiers that America gets are generally more experienced and mature as well.

Not sure I see a downside to it.