Lower the Drinking Age on Base to 18?

[Il Duce]

I was a proponent on this thread of keeping it focused on the specifics of the proposal (posts in ND vs a 'the drinking age should be lowered in the US' discussion).

But, was listening to a podcast this morning (here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/201...diction-prone-and-should-protect-their-brains ) I thought was instructive towards some of the overall drinking age discussion.

It's an interview with Dr. Frances Jensen who wrote a book called 'The Teenage Brain.' In it she lays out issues of cognitive development. I haven't read the book but the interview was fascinating in terms of the physiological neural aspects of learning, memory, and addiction. Worth the listen and probably the read if those topics interest you.

 

[Florida173]

Drinking age is already 18 for military stationed overseas.. so I don't see what the issue is. It's even lower for dependents in some of these countries. Germany's drinking age for beer and wine is 16 yo.

Is Germany experiencing whatever is being described as a disaster by some on here for their teenage drinking habits?

Cultural differences aside, how are other countries dealing with it?

 

[pardus]

Drinking age is already 18 for military stationed overseas.. so I don't see what the issue is. It's even lower for dependents in some of these countries. Germany's drinking age for beer and wine is 16 yo.

Is Germany experiencing whatever is being described as a disaster by some on here for their teenage drinking habits?

Cultural differences aside, how are other countries dealing with it?

Laws. e.g. do stupid shit when you are drunk, you will be punished appropriately. Big boys rules.

 

[Florida173]

Laws. e.g. do stupid shit when you are drunk, you will be punished appropriately. Big boys rules.

Or likely in your case to just slip through the cracks?

 

[fox1371]

Drinking age is already 18 for military stationed overseas.. so I don't see what the issue is. It's even lower for dependents in some of these countries. Germany's drinking age for beer and wine is 16 yo.

Not necessarily true. I know that in Okinawa the drinking age is 20, since that is the host nations law.

But yes, magically service members are able to handle drinking under the age of 21 while oversees (with various degrees of stupidity). I've never seen anything problematic though. Most incidents that I saw, all involved more senior personnel. If somebody did something stupid, they were properly punished for it.

 

[RetPara]

Most incidents that I saw, all involved more senior personnel. If somebody did something stupid, they were properly punished for it.

You never went drinking with me when I was 18 in Japan, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, or the Philippines.....

 

[fox1371]

You never went drinking with me when I was 18 in Japan, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, or the Philippines.....

I would've gladly!

 

[Ranger Psych]

24 hr R&R in Pattaya Beach. Bar bouncing till the bus back to the airfield.... Won 2k Baht though at a bar with a kickboxing ring and challenge though... No signs saying I had to kickbox :-"

 

[compforce]

1986 when I joined ...old enough to fight, old enough to drink. 17 and bar crawling...
1987... 19 to drink if military, I got assigned to Korea...old enough to see over the bar, old enough to drink...18/19 bar crawling in a foreign country including a 4 day pass + 48 hour pass when I reupped...6 day thunder run from Itaewon to Bong Il Chon
1989...21 to drink if military... Went back to Campbell and hung out at a bar where they knew me from before... showed them my ID on my 21st birthday and we all laughed about it
21 1/2 - charged with DUI (didn't stick, dismissed from court)

My point is that there isn't enough behavioral difference between 17/18 and 21 to make it matter what the drinking age is. Soldiers will always drink, they will always get in fights and they will always do stupid shit. It's about individual responsibility and maturity, not age. The biggest difference is that if you lower the drinking age, the younger soldiers will lose some of the mystique around it because it's no longer doing something that is forbidden. They won't have to hide what they are doing any longer.

<Begin rant>
This is all more PC bullshit. The warrior class is a different breed. Work hard, play hard has always been the motto for those that voluntarily put themselves in harm's way. The closer to the enemy the harder the play. Work hard, don't play is a recipe for disaster. If you have the major stressor of military service, which is only worsened by deployment and combat deployment, you have to have some release. It's different for everyone. If you make all of the forms of release verboten, then you end up with strung out, stressed killers with no productive way to burn it off. For me relieving stress was getting out of the barracks, hanging out in a bar with friends, having a few (or more than a few drinks) and getting stupid while trying to get lucky with some of the local ladies. The next day I'd feel like hell, but I was good for a long time after. There's just not a good way for the military to replace that form of release. I'd have probably lost it along the way if I hadn't been able to burn stress that way. I always knew no matter what kind of crap was going on or how bad the suck was that there was a good time with friends waiting at the end of it. So yes, I say lower the drinking age. A lot of really good troops that are exactly the kind of people we need are getting drummed out of the service or having their careers ruined for alcohol related incidents, and non-alcohol related incidents that come from being bored, that shouldn't even be an issue. It used to be that no one made E6 without at least one Article 15 resulting in loss of a stripe. Now an Article 15 ends a career and more than a few of them are directly related to the drinking age.

Yes, the services need the soldiers that play by the rules but they also need the steely eyed killer that parties hard when not engaging the enemy.
<end rant>

 

[CDG]

The warrior class is a different breed.

How much of the military would you honestly put into this category?

 

[compforce]

How much of the military would you honestly put into this category?

Combat Arms, SOF and those special cases of CSS are who *should* be in this class at a minimum. In today's Army, it's probably about half of that at best.

I attribute that to the mommy mentality that pervades the military. Big Boy Rules should be in effect much more often than they are. Instead we coddle the soldier and make him/her feel good about herself and as a result mental toughness is reduced significantly. I point to the rising suicide rates in combat veterans as anecdotal evidence. There's a reason that it was always hard... "better to bleed in training than die in combat" doesn't just apply to physical bleeding.

 

[CDG]

Combat Arms, SOF and those special cases of CSS are who *should* be in this class at a minimum. In today's Army, it's probably about half of that at best.

I attribute that to the mommy mentality that pervades the military. Big Boy Rules should be in effect much more often than they are. Instead we coddle the soldier and make him/her feel good about herself and as a result mental toughness is reduced significantly. I point to the rising suicide rates in combat veterans as anecdotal evidence. There's a reason that it was always hard... "better to bleed in training than die in combat" doesn't just apply to physical bleeding.

That's my point. The "everyone's a warrior who charges hills with a rifle for his country" argument kind of falls flat. So if that's the justification, then it's not applicable to the entire military. Guys on here relating how they drank at an early age and could handle it are abnormal cases that only seem more significant because of how relatively small this board is. For every compforce, RetPara, RangerPsych, and fox1371, there are exponentially more that DO make poor choices and can't handle it. Almost every single alcohol related incident I saw in the Navy when overseas were those under 21 who were allowed to drink because of whatever port we were in.

 

[fox1371]

For every compforce, RetPara, RangerPsych, and fox1371, there are exponentially more that DO make poor choices and can't handle it. Almost every single alcohol related incident I saw in the Navy when overseas were those under 21 who were allowed to drink because of whatever port we were in.

Do you think that perhaps the fact that since the drinking age was 21 in the states, that maybe they went overboard since it was illegal when they went back to the U.S.? I know I did when I was in Okinawa. We all partied hard because when we got stateside, it was no longer legal to do so.

 

[compforce]

For every compforce, RetPara, RangerPsych, and fox1371, there are exponentially more that DO make poor choices and can't handle it. Almost every single alcohol related incident I saw in the Navy when overseas were those under 21 who were allowed to drink because of whatever port we were in.

I don't disagree. I think this is a problem with lack of accountability and personal responsibility though. Those are both things that can and should be taught from day 1 in basic. (actually, they should be taught from an early age by the parents, but the military can't control that). Take a look at what all of us that did make good choices have in common. We all grew up in the "old" service, you know, back when it was hard or in units where excellence is the norm. On the very first day of basic when I did the duffel bag drag (do they even do that any more?) we were told that we were responsible for ourselves and helping our buddy. That was reinforced every single day throughout training. We received both positive AND negative reinforcement and it worked. Did we have alcohol related incidents at the unit? Sure. Did we have many of them? No. I was in back when they tried out the cohort platoon. The concept was that the platoon stayed together from Basic throughout the military career. It actually only happened for our first duty station, but it meant that the people in my entire platoon with the exception of the PSG and PL went through basic together. I know that in that platoon we had 1 alcohol related incident in a year and a half together. BTW, that was the oldest guy in the platoon. He got into a bar brawl defending a stripper that got punched by a guy from another unit.

My point is that the military is coddling the new soldiers. They are trying to apply corporate leadership techniques to soldiers. It doesn't work in that environment. Go back to the days when an NCO could make it painful to make a mistake. I'm not talking about the "meet me in the laundry room" days, just back as far as when a person could stay in the front leaning rest for hours. Back to when flutter kicks and koalifying were something you'd see all the time. I can tell you that the current "Article 15 for everything" environment comes from the corporate world and DOES NOT WORK IN THE MILITARY. Putting it on paper, whether a counseling statement or a non-judicial punishment only does one of two things. Either the soldier doesn't care OR the soldier cares very much and loses motivation because of the career consequences. In the corporate world it works because the employee knows that the paperwork is a prelude to losing their livelihood. In the military world it doesn't work because the soldier knows, mentally, that, yes, they will take a potential pay cut and career hit, but the reality is that paper holds very little power/influence over the soldier until it is too late to salvage them. Very few behavioral changes can be made by a piece of paper or telling them "don't do that again". Complete behavioral changes can be effected by small, short, but painful negative reinforcement when they do something wrong and small, short, but pleasant positive reinforcement when they do something right.

 

[compforce]

. For every compforce, RetPara, RangerPsych, and fox1371, there are exponentially more that DO make poor choices and can't handle it.

One more thought. If they aren't responsible enough to make good choices and deal with alcohol that young, are they responsible enough to carry a loaded firearm? Or are we taking whoever we can get and then just using them as cannon fodder and hoping they point the gun in the right direction? Maybe even getting lucky and hitting a bad guy with an AD....

 

[Marauder06]

<Begin rant>
This is all more PC bullshit. The warrior class is a different breed. ...
<end rant>

I disagree. They are the SAME breed, because they come from the same pool of people. After a period of adaptation to the lifestyle and adoption of the military's values troops might become something different, but in general members of the military are cut from the same cloth that makes up the fabric of American society. The idea that a young enlistee or officer is somehow innately better at decision-making than his or her peers just doesn't hold up. We can look at the most recent records of courts-martial for evidence of this.

 

[AWP]

You could lower the drinking age to 18 if you had an NCO corps.

 

[compforce]

I disagree. They are the SAME breed, because they come from the same pool of people. After a period of adaptation to the lifestyle and adoption of the military's values troops might become something different, but in general members of the military are cut from the same cloth that makes up the fabric of American society. The idea that a young enlistee or officer is somehow innately better at decision-making than his or her peers just doesn't hold up. We can look at the most recent records of courts-martial for evidence of this.

Respectfully I will disagree with this. I do partially agree that on day 1 when we enter the military we are all the same. We all come from the same pool. That said, take a look, and I'm focused on the enlisted side as I don't have enough experience with officers, at the differences between combat arms and support versions of basic/AIT. I've been through both Infantry OSUT and Signal AIT. The differences were very pronounced. The sense of responsibility that is forced down your throat in INF training was very very noticeably absent in the 25 series course.

Also, while I don't truly believe in the "born to kill" idea, I do believe that people will gravitate toward the jobs that fit their personality best. There will always be shades of gray (not the book/movie!) in where their personalities lie, but I do believe that the whole purpose of basic/ait is to undo a person's experience, break their bad habits and then rebuild the Army values on that nearly blank slate. That we no longer take a person back to that level is part of the reason that I feel like today's lower enlisted/younger NCO do not tend towards those traits that I would call a warrior. Respectfully, I think the short version is that everyone starts their military career at the same level, but evolve and mature faster in the combat arms/SOF/certain CSS like EOD world, especially with a combat deployment. I'm not saying there aren't exceptions, just that the rule tends to prove out, at least among enlisted troops.

 

[compforce]

I said part of that badly. When I am talking about warriors, I'm talking about people of any MOS that are the ones you'd want on the battlefield next to you. In the old days we would have called them the "field soldiers". They're the ones that were constantly in trouble for something in garrison, but you put a ruck on their back and rifle in their hands and they were the people that actually got the job done. In the pareital principle, they were the 20% doing 80% of the work.

 

[pardus]

You could lower the drinking age to 18 if you had an NCO corps.

Wooah there, I don't want to see anymore crazy talk from you young man!