The age of conscription should be lowered to 16

[Lovepeaceunderstanding]

The world looks much less stable than it has for a long while. In the event of war our depleted armed forces will need all the help they can get. We should lower the age of conscription to 16?

TheMoth

Germany suspended conscription in 2011.

Yes let's send them off at 16 then when/ if they do come back maimed, crippled and traumatised we'll just forget about them and ignore their trauma and rehab because we're so good in this country at looking after our vulnerable. 🙄

I read a great book on national service . The boys who didn't cope well were generally working class kids who still lived at home and had not travelled. Boys who had been to boarding school did much better. Ordinary teenagers in the 40s and 50s were not generally independent.

Hang on, are we doing someone's homework here?

They did in the 70’s.

My first ship was HMS Cygnet doing Grenada patrol in Northern Ireland (ship searches for weapons). This was during the “troubles”. The ship operated out of Belfast Lough, berthed near the Harland & Wolff gantry.

I was armed with an SLR on the jetty, aged 17 and 6 months.

And the modeŕn, professional armed services have no use for people that don't want to be there.

Who are the 'boomers' who are so keen on it? Not me or anyone I know.

They would be more of a hinderance

No they can't

This x 100 ^

How silly.

You will be putting children up chimneys next, in the last war nobody under 19 was able to be posted abroad until they were 19.

Where are you writing from?! We don’t have conscription. Most countries don’t have conscription. Even the militarist dystopia in the US doesn’t have conscription. Very few developed countries do.

Have you signed yourself up? I assume so. See you in the trench!

Anyway OP you win the award for the most dim thread of the day 👏 🥳

Possibly the stupidest most ill-informed thread I've ever seen.

🤣

🤣🤣

Can my 90 year old dad opt out though, because in fairness he already did his two years of national service back in the 50s!

Personally OP I think the lower age limit should be raised to 40 and the upper age limit raised to 100. Dad's army and all that. Gonna need all the young people to repopulate the country once WWIII is over.

😂

Are you always full of such daft ideas?

Oh dear

GTF

What an absolutely excellent name you have!

Why thank you Feral!

Mumsnet isn't a 6th form debating club. Stop posting stupid bullshit to get people riled up.