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No, actually, it's nothing of the kind. Sorry but the "old enough to die, old enough to drink" thing is faulty logic.....ie how important or dangerous something is doesn't necessarily correlate to how mature you should or need to be to use it. In fact, if anything, in this case it's the opposite: youth are typically very careful and responsible with guns; much LESS so with drinking. They tend to know that guns are very serious business, not to be trifled with...again, not nearly so much with drinking.
Further, what's to stop someone from getting hammered on base/post and then driving off-base? Not good.
If anything, adherence to the 21 age should be strictly enforced on ALL bases/posts.
Location: Georgia, on the Florida line, right above Tallahassee
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I can agree with this. It's much like sex, which should not be allowed until the person is 21. AS we all know, youth are much less cautious when it comes to sex. And driving a car. It's statisticly proven that youth have more accidents. To solve this, we should make people unable to drive a car until they are say, 38. Incidently, I'm 38.
PS: I arrived at Yokota Air Base after I turned 19. There was beer in the drink machines.. on every floor of the dorm. Mt. Dew, Coca Cola, and Budweiser. You could drink, anything off base you wanted. I think the ration card was 3 bottles of liquor and 10 cases of beer a month. It's been a while. It was a hell of a lot of beer, though. I remember that. There was no ration card off base. There was a 7-11 off base though, right outside the gate - about 1 minute away by car, or 5 minutes on foot - with beer, wine, sake, soju, whiskey and pretty much any kind of booze you wanted, in 1/2 pint and pints.
AS you can imagine, with this much booze available, the base was a firestorm of drunken rioting, rapes and people getting shot by drunken Airmen left and right. I could barely make it across base to buy my beer without getting hit by some alcohol soaked hooligan and yes, I'm just making that up.
Were there alcohol related incidents? Of course.
I'm in Iraq. You can't legally drink here. Ask me if there are any alcohol related incidents here. Of course there are.
Old enough to serve your country. Can work as a porn star if you like. Adult enough to get married, even. You can help to choose the leader of yourf country. Unable to handle a bootle of suds. The 21 age limit is a crock of crap. Australia and the UK have a legal drinking age of 18 and higher alcohol consumption rates but significantly lower rates of drunk driving deaths.
You can take one of these and blow a few people's brains out :
A lot of people seem to be missing the point. Drinking is illegal for 18 year olds not because of the harm they cause themselves, but the harm they cause others.
1. There is no draft. No one forced you to join. If you want to drink in the military, wait until you are 21 to join. An 18 year old firefighter or policeman could make the same dumb argument you guys are making. Heck, there are a thousand dangerous jobs out there, should they all be allowed to drink? As a matter of fact, workers of dangerous jobs often put themselves in harms way every day. How many people in the military actually risk their lives under fire? Not many.
2. If you get yourself killed serving you only harm yourself and your family, if you drink and drive and kill someone you harm society. And when the drinking age was 18 there were a lot more deaths caused by 18 year olds, hence the reason the law is the way it is now.
3. Joining the military benefits society, drinking benefits no one. It's unneccessary.
The only argument to really be made is making service age 21, but this won't work because people will go to college and never join, or they will change their ideals by the time they are old enough. Young men fight wars because they by and large are the only ones naive enough to do so. I know that will make some of you mad, but it's the simple truth. Military age has to be low. Drinking age does not. Bottom line is the law is fine the way it is and unless they start up a draft you can wait until you're 21 to join the military.
If marijuana was legal there might be an argument to be made as users rarely harm others. Alcohol is a different story though.
Last edited by The Law Man; 03-16-2010 at 11:20 AM..
Reason: more info
Just lower the drinking age to 18 for everyone...It's a joke, you go to your average college dorm and the majority of the underage students are getting drunk every week anyways. The more you restrict alcohol the more likely kids are going to binge drink. The stupid laws that organizations like MADD promote (that aren't even necessarily related to drunk driving) haven't done a damn thing in stopping kids from drinking.
The rest of the world laughs at our stupid puritanical laws in this country...In fricking Canada you can drink at age 18 or 19 in most of the provinces, for f--ks sakes.
The military does not trust its members (non-com) enough to allow them to carry side arms on their persons while on base. Why should they allow them alcohol?
Trust them with side-arms first. See if they are responsible enough to handle the tools of their trade. Alcohol is not a tool of their trade.
Just curious of your guys opinions of this...Troops drinking behind the walls of a military base. Of course if the military were to do it, there would be an alcohol related education.
To pass on some facts...
When a military base is outside the US, it adheres to that countries drinking age.
Military bases overrule town/county/state alcohol laws. EG: a law that states no booze on Sunday does not apply on bases.
The overwhelming majority of youth, military or not, is drinking.
It's generally regarded if alcohol is introduced at a young age with a STRONG EDUCATION in responsibility would decrease the chance of them having drinking problems. This theory is why other countries generally have less problems then the US.
Heck, the drinking age was 18 when I was a kid, but we all drank alcohol by the age of 12. When I went to college, I did not give a damn about getting drunk, as it was not a unique experience and I had no interest in it. If a guy is in the military, he should be able to buy a beer- not a big deal.
A lot of people seem to be missing the point. Drinking is illegal for 18 year olds not because of the harm they cause themselves, but the harm they cause others.
1. There is no draft. No one forced you to join. If you want to drink in the military, wait until you are 21 to join. An 18 year old firefighter or policeman could make the same dumb argument you guys are making. Heck, there are a thousand dangerous jobs out there, should they all be allowed to drink? As a matter of fact, workers of dangerous jobs often put themselves in harms way every day. How many people in the military actually risk their lives under fire? Not many.
2. If you get yourself killed serving you only harm yourself and your family, if you drink and drive and kill someone you harm society. And when the drinking age was 18 there were a lot more deaths caused by 18 year olds, hence the reason the law is the way it is now.
3. Joining the military benefits society, drinking benefits no one. It's unneccessary.
The only argument to really be made is making service age 21, but this won't work because people will go to college and never join, or they will change their ideals by the time they are old enough. Young men fight wars because they by and large are the only ones naive enough to do so. I know that will make some of you mad, but it's the simple truth. Military age has to be low. Drinking age does not. Bottom line is the law is fine the way it is and unless they start up a draft you can wait until you're 21 to join the military.
If marijuana was legal there might be an argument to be made as users rarely harm others. Alcohol is a different story though.
This post is very confusing.
An 18 year old in the military can drink because you say it is illegal?
It should be 18. Yes, it would result in more alcohol related deaths for those between 18 and 21 but that's how it ought to be. Once it was done and accepted we should treat drinking the way we treat everything else and teach people about the word "moderation" and how to apply it to life. THAT is the real problem anyway. We are just too childcentric and the "think of the children" crowd prevent people from becoming responsible individuals becasue they never have to make the choices.
Speaking only in terms of medical care and lost time at work, alcohol abuse costs DoD more than $600 million each year, said Navy Capt. Robert Murphy, a medical corps officer. DoD spends another $132 million a year to care for babies with fetal alcohol syndrome -- sometimes-serious health problems related to their mothers’ heavy drinking.
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