What high-rolling, wheeling and dealing company would put an inexperienced 18 year old on one of its million dollar pieces of hardware(Draft Age Should Be 21, Not 18, 2015)? The answer is none. 18 year olds are young, inexperienced, and reckless right? Well guess what… your government puts them on our front lines, defending you. The Enlistment age in the military should be raised to 21.

Currently, you have to be 18 to enlist. 18 year olds have been sent to war in the United States since the Civil War (Peterson, 2014). The minimum age for enlistment in the U.S. Military is 17(with parents consult) or 18(without parents consult) (Powers, 2015). Basically throughout all of America’s history the minimum age to enlist has been the same. But not only is it in the U.S. that it’s a law, ? of UN members states have established in law or otherwise committed to a minimum military recruitment age of 18(Straight-18, 2015). This is an issue because now all around the world teenagers are going to fight wars and put their life on the line.

Teenagers have been proven to do reckless, inconsiderate things. According to Matt Steinglass, teenagers are prone to doing ridiculously ill-advised things. In his article “Raise the Recruitment Age?”, he addresses his opinion on how he thinks that the military recruitment age should be raised to 21. In 2012, there were 3,941 arrests for every 100,000 youths(10-17) in the U.S.(Juvenile Arrest Rate Trends, 2012). This statistic shows how teens are more prone to breaking the law than older people, would you want that in the military that’s protecting you every day? Finally, would you believe that mortality actually goes up 200% during adolescence? Not from the reckless behavior I bet! Now would you want this accident prone, uncontained teenager behind the barrel of a rifle?
Also, the human body isn’t fully developed at 18. MRI mapping shows that the brain doesn’t finish developing white matter until in your twenties(Raise the Military Enlistment Age to 21, 2015). Also, cognitive development isn’t fully complete at 18(Growth & Development, Ages 18 and Over, 2014). Now would you want a person who isn’t fully done developing and who still going through phases of puberty and development defending our country? They even have a feeling of invincibility(Growth & Development, Ages 18 and Over, 2014)! Which we all know we aren’t, so imagine what that’ll do to impact their decision making skills.

Is letting our 18 year olds go to war child abuse? In a sense, yes it is. According to Michelle Rosenthal(Writer at Ted.com) it is a form of child abuse and neglect. Not only can we be harmed physically, we can also be hurt mentally. 30.9% of male veterans and 26.9% of female veterans have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder(National Center of PTSD, 2015). Why would you want to torture your child like that or make them go through that horrible experience? Finally, Roy R(Veteran) says “You can’t take an 18-year old brain and subject it to the constant threat of death or injury and expect it not to be effected,”(Success Story: Roy. 2013). Why would you want to do that to yourself, and be permanently affected by it?

If we get rid of teenagers in the military it’ll save taxpayers dollars. If we cut the teenagers out of our military, the 3 billion dollars saved by eliminating them can be used on the salaries of career personnel(Tierney,1988). Essentially, it’ll benefit our military by increasing the amount of instruction and the quality of the instruction to the older personnel, making our military better and getting rid of reckless teens. Michael Tierney(Author) says that “If we get rid of kids in the Armed Forces we’ll save our tax dollars”. He also says “This alone would provide America with a well-manned and well-experienced military”(Tierney,1988). So doesn’t it make sense to cut teens out? We’ll be saving a ton of taxpayer dollars AND providing ourselves with a better manned military.

Although there are a lot of supporters to eliminating teens from our military, some say that 18 year olds will do things 21 year olds won’t in battle. This is true, but these kids are impulsive and inexperienced, and they’re manning our missiles(Tierney.1988)! Why would we want that defending our nation? Also, why keep the enlistment age 18 when you have to be 21 to drink and rent a car?

18 year olds aren’t fit for combat. They are inexperienced, risky, and impulsive. Their bodies aren’t ready to be on the front lines. Why should we be ok with kids manning our missiles and driving our tanks defending our homeland? That is why the enlistment age should be raised to 21 for all branches of our military.