19 yr old son and fear of being called up to fight in a war

[User287264]

This is not a thread about "will WW3 start tomorrow", there are plenty of those already

Ds is 19 and has been talking about lot about what would happen if the UK did enter a war and if young people his age would be called up to fight.

He's such a gentle soul, I think this would be his worst nightmare. (Not that many people would relish it I know)

I'm not sure what to say to him. It feels to me like a general call-up WW2 style would not happen nowadays but what do I know?

I guess we all have our different worries about world security right now but I guess his is quite a specific worry. I'm 52 with arthritis, I'm not ever likely to be called up to fight.

It's total speculation and I still dont feel it's very likely, but does anyone have any idea how a massive call-up might work nowadays? Or would the current armed forces and reserves be enough? I'd like to reassure him without just dismissing his fears.

He does have a tendency to anxiety which doesn't help, but he's generally good at handling it. We're having a news-free day (apart from me right now) and going out for a big walk in the rain

Midlands too. Since I posted much earlier on we've got grey clouds too... looks like rain coming. If it does rain it had better bloody cool down to & not just turn into even more of a sauna!!

@SwimSwamSwimSwam ☺️

Each conflict is different. Biggest military mistake is planning based on a previous war rather than gaming a future one.
Ukranians had a very different mindset before Feb 22, though older generations grew up when national service was common - was obligatory in Soviet era and schools did cadet style training for all.
At present under 25s are exempt from compulsory military service in Ukraine, but you can join up voluntarily.
We got rid of national service as it was a waste of time and resources teaching reluctant teens to do basic training badly.
So vanishingly small chance that there will be conscription and as others have said v much more likely that it’s all over on four minutes or that most ‘conscripted’ people would be at home doing things that support the home front while those with prior training or skills are on whatever constitutes a battlefield. People’s attitudes as to what they can and want to do change v quickly in times of crisis

Tell that to the Ukrainians who’ve had to enforce ever more strict conscription as their war has dragged on. Or to the many (mainly) men the Russians have drafted in from their prisons, mercenary groups and North Korea.

Armies still need bodies on the ground to advance and secure the territory the drones have ‘cleared.’ And as anti-drone capability develops, and gets cheaper and easier to deploy, they’ll become a lot less effective.

There is that!

Exactly this, you can’t conscientiously object out of being murdered by Russian troops if they invaded the UK, it would be kill or be killed.

No one is going to be called up

Even if it got as far as actual war and even if more bodies were needed, there will be enough mouthy types who want to go to war to volunteer, the right wing types really. Let them go, they'll have fun.

It would only be a possibility if we were invaded and that is not at all a likely scenario. However, if it happened I would be doing all I could as a 60+ woman with a dodgy heart and dodgier back and I imagine surprisingly large numbers of our young people would be doing the same.

(Pining for Midlands rain here)

I think Ukrainian conscription is / was 27+. No one wants to conscript teenagers anymore. Teenage deaths are not a good look. Of course, the down side of older recruitment is young children losing their fathers.

Sorry???

not seeing what your comment has to do with my post?

Yes, I have been to the military cemeteries & yes it's beyond tragic.

some of my family were thise families.

that has precisely nothing to do with how fucked we'd be now if they started calling up the current 19+ year olds.

More people need to stop following the news.

I think you're right that there won't be a need for large-scale conscription. I think that's reassuring to him.

Ds has always been the kind of kid who can put himself in other people's situations and imagine their feelings. I guess that's partly a good thing but partly also a bad thing. I think he's got himself wound up thinking about boys his age and younger who were sent to war in the past with little choice and how they would feel.

He needs to stop dwelling on this, it's not good for him. The rain has eased off a bit now so we're going to take our neighbour's dog out for a walk.

@330ml Wales too huh. Wales is beautiful no matter the weather 😊

It’s been raining heavily in my area of Scotland all morning. Really belting it down..,you do know that other areas of the UK have different weather?

We're all sitting here, worrying a little, hoping it won't happen but doing nothing. It is up to all of us to say that we resist getting involved and will not participate. Not just us in the UK, everywhere, Americans most of all - so many are still grieving from Vietnam. If there are enough voices, our government will listen. Let's all write letters today.

Young and middle-aged I think. There was an age limit on when they could leave the country, some sad scenes I remember of women and kids getting on trains to leave and the men left behind.

Al Murray earns a living out of WW2 nostalgia. ‘We have Ways Fest’ is a massive business with people reenacting battles and lots a real ale - though there’s a bit of pushback about who’s allowed to dress up as a Nazi.

It’s very much ‘on brand’ to ridicule today’s youth and obsess about the past.

I’ve told my kids I think they should be prepared to go to prison first, unless every child of an MP has already been called up and is on active field action.

I don't think that's fair, the young men in my family and their friends all did army cadets, DofE, Ten Tors. They aren't all sitting on their computers all day.

Even toddlers? Or do you mean every child in a certain age group?

Well drones are being used in Ukraine but there are still soliders on the ground actually fighting and getting killed. In fact Ukraine has lowered their age for conscription recently as they need more soliders - actual human beings This is a bit of a flippant answer in a time when many many realife human soliders are still losing their lives in wars in large numbers

I am sorry your son is worried about this OP. I think conscription to fight is only likely to happen if we are actually properly invaded, which it seems to me seems very very unlikely. I don't know how you can reassure your son though, as I am not sure there is any real reassurance to be had in the sense that his worries are almost impossible. I actually worry about this for my own 19 year old son, though I have never said anything of the sort to him and he does not seem to worry about it at all, for which I am grateful. I can only say that we are living in uncertain times and the UK is gradually leaving that bubble of certainty that we are a fundamentally safe nation. I am not sure of what the future holds but it is no longer that certainty that what is happening in the wider world is not likely to touch us in this 'safe haven' . Since there is evry little we can do about it however, I would encourage your son to be brave and to accept that his fears, whilst very unlikelly to happen are not completely without basis. Since he can do very little about it however, his energies would be better being used to live his life and not to worry too much about things that have not yet happened

Well drones are being used in Ukraine but there are still soliders on the ground actually fighting and getting killed. In fact Ukraine has lowered their age for conscription recently as they need more soliders - actual human beings This is a bit of a flippant answer in a time when many many realife human soliders are still losing their lives in wars in large numbers

I am sorry your son is worried about this OP. I think conscription to fight is only likely to happen if we are actually properly invaded, which it seems to me seems very very unlikely. I don't know how you can reassure your son though, as I am not sure there is any real reassurance to be had in the sense that his worries are almost impossible. I actually worry about this for my own 19 year old son, though I have never said anything of the sort to him and he does not seem to worry about it at all, for which I am grateful. I can only say that we are living in uncertain times and the UK is gradually leaving that bubble of certainty that we are a fundamentally safe nation. I am not sure of what the future holds but it is no longer that certainty that what is happening in the wider world is not likely to touch us in this 'safe haven' . Since there is evry little we can do about it however, I would encourage your son to be brave and to accept that his fears, whilst very unlikelly to happen are not completely without basis. Since he can do very little about it however, his energies would be better being used to live his life and not to worry too much about things that have not yet happened

No one is going to be called up to fight a war… least of all a load of random untrained people. Soldiering is a skilled thing these days.

Any war would involve the destruction of infrastructure so that society would turn on itself, most like via cyber attack. Or we would be erased in a moment by nuclear weapons.

I agree with this ^
I don’t think 19 y.o without military experience or skills will be helpful in the modern army, and joining in will be voluntary.
For the rest of population resources/ production lines might be oriented towards military needs products so it might affect everyday jobs.
Also being an island has its positives as well - I don’t think we will have Iranian or Russian soldiers swimming to our shores in small (or big) boats.

I wonder if he is generally worried about his future plans/ place in society/ friendships and relationships. Something triggered this particular worry so I would try to dig out the primary reason.

Both my grandfathers did when underage in WW1, one was an orphan but the other one was fetched back by his father twice, the third time he just let him go. They both then joined up in WW2. Neither of them aggressive men but both did what they felt was right.

Amazingly, despite the fact that there is a war of attrition with actual front lines and the enemy troops physically invading the country, the minimum age for conscription in Ukraine is still 25.

In any UK-Russia war, infantry combat on any sort of scale would be extremely unlikely. For one thing, modern soldiers don't fight without huge amounts of equipment, which the UK does not have. The time taken to train anyone to operate that equipment is very long indeed, and you have to be selective in who you recruit. There are many reasons why Russia is losing so many more men than Ukraine, but one of them is because they are sending a lot of people who are not capable of much more than holding a rifle.