quote:

I want to make sure that all of you are willing to put your money where your mouth is and readily volunteer your friends and family to be massacred, before you volunteer the lives of others.

Well we don't have to do that, we live in a country with a large, professional all volunteer military where we also have this whole "control of the goverment concept" and for that matter goverment at all which is sparse in many countries where child soldiers are utilized.

Conscription children or otherwise is one of the oldest and least useful tools of a political body. It is proven that conscripts make an inferior fighting force (see: USSR). There are some exceptions to that rule mostly Israel and South Korea where everyone severes two years at the age of 18 to gain full citizenship. The way it's viewed in the culture changes the mindset of most of the young people going in to service from "conscript syndrome" to a "I'm defending my country, this is the right thing to do" the fact that israel is surrounded by enemies on all sides and south korea has it's threatening neighbors the north and china. Despite these two counter-examples a well trained, all-volunteer force will usually have 2-3 times the combat power (if not more) then a similerly equipped conscript based force (for details on the calculation there, see "How to Make War, 4th Edition")

quote:

Originally posted by clpo13:
I don't see how that's any different than conscription of soldiers of any age.

At any rate, that doesn't change my views.

It's not any different, that's the point.

I want to make sure that all of you are willing to put your money where your mouth is and readily volunteer your friends and family to be massacred, before you volunteer the lives of others.

I don't see how that's any different than conscription of soldiers of any age.

At any rate, that doesn't change my views.

Alright.

Now let's throw you through a loop.

Let's say all J.R.O.T.C. members were required to actively participate in the military, including being deployed.

Let's also say that J.R.O.T.C. is now based on a conscription model, instead of a volunteer-based model.

By all of your previous definitions, any hostile action against the J.R.O.T.C. cadets, with or without their consent and irregardless to their own personal views or ideas, should be killed if they are believed to pose a threat. This is a parallel of what is going on in other countries where child soldiers are being deployed. While it may not have the same dynamics of J.R.O.T.C., you are still in the same conditions.

What is your stance now, knowing this as a possibility? I want to make sure that you are all still on the same page with not only volunteering to kill other's lives, but with volunteering your own schoolmate's lives to the same fate.

quote:

they are only children.

With AK-47s....

In most countries children are forced to becomes a solider against the childs will and then brainwashed. Many times if they don't follow the rules they are beaten. So to them following the rules no matter how bad = not getting hurt. I believe they should be treated equally to a point because they are killing people but yet again they are only children.

I'm with amp: a soldier is a soldier, regardless of their age. Giving children soldiers special privileges will only result in more deaths on the other side. The children may be brainwashed and they may not know exactly what they want, but that's not going to stop them from shooting someone.

In a lot of countries children are sort of brainwashed into actually wanting to become soldiers. Technically it's still "voluntary," right?

Children don't know what they really want, they should never have a choice as to whether or not they want to go around carrying guns and killing people. That's completely absurd. Children are so fickle and gentle that they have no place in a war or being soldiers. Children should be and do as children are. They shouldn't have their childhood taken away from them. And the people who accept them as soldiers are more to blame than the children volunteering. It's a horrible idea all around and makes me shudder with disgust.

If a child voluntarily becomes a soldier he loses his status as a child because in some sense to US law he's declared emancipation, he's made an adult choice in the adult world, only difference is that he's smaller. So no, no special treatment, they're the enemy just like every other person trying to kill you so there really is no ethical delema there. According to LOAC and depending on your ROE any one points a gun (or a rocket launcher for that matter) at you in a combat zone you wax'em man, woman or child because your life and the lives of your men come first.

A soldier's a soldier, size matters not