Son signed up for Army training without telling us

[anotherglass]

My 20-year-old son, who is at university studying engineering, has signed up for University Officer Training. He has signed a contract and undergone a medical. We only found out last night.
He is a young man who loves Leonard Cohen, plays the guitar and enjoys building electrical systems. Now he’ll be learning parachuting, marksmanship and how to shoot at targets.
I understand the appeal. Around £50 a week, exciting training, new friendships, adventure, mountaineering, climbing and paid overseas trips. For a young person at university, it must sound like an extraordinary opportunity.
At present, these reservists cannot be deployed. But in the current climate, I am deeply uneasy about how secure that assurance really is, and how quickly this position could change.
I haven’t yet managed to speak to him properly about it. But I am deeply troubled that the possibility of a change in status, including being redesignated and potentially becoming deployable, does not appear to have been made sufficiently clear at the outset.
A quick search online suggests that there is already discussion within parts of the military about getting a greater return on the investment in training university officers by making them deployable. If that is a possibility, surely young people need to understand it before they sign a contract — not simply be told about it if the rules change later.
This is what troubles me most. A package of pay, training, adventure and belonging can be enormously attractive to a 20-year-old. But the potential obligations and risks deserve equal prominence.
I know my son is an adult, and I respect his right to make his own decisions. But I am his mum, and the thought that he could one day be called upon to serve in a conflict — when that possibility is not something we had understood to be part of the deal — is genuinely frightening. Anyone else in the same position? Any thoughts on how to navigate this with son?

It's the OTC. More like grown up cadets unless he decides to join up when he completes his studies.

He'll learn loads of stuff and how to lead. Pretty decent for a CV.

Army training is first rate in terms of learning how to take control of a situation, delegate, communicate information.

I think he'll get a lot more from it than target practice. Talk to him about it calmly.

He’s not discounting it. It’s not a risk that currently exists so his attitude is reasonable.

And let's be honest, if it gets to the stage where having been in the OTC means he is later conscripted, we are not all going to he living nice normal lives outside of that.

Nobody in their right mind, certainly not the white working class, is going to put their lives and the lives of their sons, on the line for this government. Just look at the way they and veterans are being treated ?. If you're so keen make sure you're at the front of the Q, but believe me, you wont have much trouble with that.

I was in the OTC having loved cadets when I was school age. It was great! I’d recommend it to any student. Don’t think it would have crossed my mind to tell my parents first.

when I went to interviews at grad jobs they all asked about it and I’m sure it helped me get a foot in door.

I understand you might be unnerved by it but I reading your subsequent posts I think you may be spiralling a bit.

Personally I think you are overreacting

I was part of a similar group during university and this was during the Iraq wars. It’s a fantastic way of giving young people experiences confidence and camaraderie.

highly unlikely he would ever be deployed

But there is no evidence that thay have been deceptive. OP has no idea what her son was told. The information about deployment could be in block capitals across the top of the contract for all she knows

I think you would be surprised. I work with a lot of Forces families. They don't see it as putting their lives on the line for the government: it is about their country and, for many of them, their duty.

I’ve gently suggested to DS (19) that he might want to look at URNU or OTC. He’s preferring to spend his time getting beaten up in the rugby pitch. From experience I know he will learn valuable transferable skills and I suspect it would be a very positive experience. But so far he’s not that interested.

Have a calm conversation with your son OP, but I imagine he knows a lot more about it than you do.

Id have a very different reaction to you and do have forces experience. I went on after a short military career to have a successful career in the city. Now awaiting call up 😉

Actually go f*ck yourself. I understand you’re worried about your son, but that doesn’t give you the right to speak to me the way you did. Everyone has their own experiences, sacrifices and reasons for feeling strongly about these things, and mine are no less valid than yours. I don’t think it’s fair to compare conflicts or dismiss what others have been through just because the circumstances are different. I’ve made sacrifices too, for other people and for what I believe in, and I won’t have those feelings belittled or be told to go fuck myself for expressing an opinion.
You are being ridiculous, no wonder your son didn’t speak to you first when you’re so irrational.

I think OP is worried about her son being shot at, not that he is being taught gun safety.

I think he’s very sensible! It’s an excellent career option for the right people, and if she’s signed up he obviously thinks it might be right for him. Well done him!

Nobody shoots at you in the OTC.

What he signed will have had all of the information though, and as an adult it is his choice.
Adults make bad decisions all the time, but you need to face up to the fact after 18 that is on them.
As his mother if you didn't prepare him for that level of responsibility in time, then that I'm afraid, is on you.
There is nothing new about the promotion of the armed forces as an adventure- I am sure he was also aware, many other countries do the same- it is to be expected.

The armed forces provide good training and career opportunities, the university cadets are basically a club but will put him in a good position if he decides on a military career, for engineering they reimburse their university fees! My dc is in the military and it’s opened so many doors. They have deployed too, though as engineers they are not in the front line!

So you are OK with Russia moving in? It's unlikely but not impossible.

Its racist to fly your own flag in your own country and many are condemned for it yet you want that demograph to risk their lives, and yes war means risking your life and limb. Look at Ukraine, its wholesale slaughter. And did many service families who lost people in Afghanistan think it was worth it ?. Look at that country now ?. You're talking about a call up in a major war, not serving in the smallest army we've had in decades for a few years.

You really need to wake up and see this for what it is. Nobody is going to march into line as they did in 1914.

Are you volunteering then ?.

If russia were about to invade then absolutely yes.

As far as not knowing about the reality of military service goes, he's a world away from the lads of WWI, some of whom had barely left their hometown before and knew nothing about war at all, let alone the horrors that lay ahead which were unwritten then.

Everyone I know from at least my generation on (and I'm in my 60s) has been exposed to real life images of war and importantly, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, et al. What's happening in Ukraine is on the news daily, in more profusion than Vietnam was in my childhood and I saw enough coverage. You'd have to be very dense indeed, which I'm sure your son is not, to fail to have some sort of grasp.

As others have pointed out, if the UOTC are sent on active duty at any point, we will all be living very different lives.

As what and with what ?.

@Laurmolonlabe
he’s more likely to be shot at by any of the ferals blighting pretty much every city and town across the U.K

UTOC are not CURRENTLY deployable. It is always possible that the law could be changed to make this so. Legislation already passed under Starmer to expand the pool of reservists who can be called up.

Officer training provides masses of skills transferable into other walks of life.

I didn't say I wanted anyone to risk their lives. I did say that working closely with the children of veterans and serving personnel has given me a different understanding of how they see service.