> It means, for example, that if you have to go to war, and sometimes you probably have to go to war—I'm not talking about a belligerent country starting war or fomenting discord, but if you have to go to war and to engage infantry—you do not send 18-year-olds into it, because their brains aren't set.
Unless the enemy infantry and fire-support are utterly incompetent or horribly outnumbered, the vast majority of such 18-year-olds will be killed in action. (And in the outnumbering case, the younger infantry are likely to be lower-rank and therefore could be easily selected for the more dangerous tasks.)
What consequences remain, then, of using 18-year-olds instead of 25-year-olds? Is the author actually implying that 18-year-olds' emotional deficiencies make them less competent as infantry?
Unless the enemy infantry and fire-support are utterly incompetent or horribly outnumbered, the vast majority of such 18-year-olds will be killed in action. (And in the outnumbering case, the younger infantry are likely to be lower-rank and therefore could be easily selected for the more dangerous tasks.)
What consequences remain, then, of using 18-year-olds instead of 25-year-olds? Is the author actually implying that 18-year-olds' emotional deficiencies make them less competent as infantry?