I know technically you can join the US military at 17 with parental consent, but I guess I still find it very disingenuous to constantly refer to military recruits as 17 year olds. as of 2026 the overall age of army enlistment has actually gone up, the average army recruit is nearly 23 these days. across all branches, the average age of active duty service members is nearly 29. I am not saying 17 year olds do not ever also enlist, but it is a misrepresentation of the truth to infantilize soldiers in this way. in the grand scheme of things I would say people in their 20s are still relatively young, sure. if we’re talking about making mistakes in your personal relationships, making poor financial choices, generally having a hard time finding direction in life—I can totally follow you there. but I don’t think it should be surprising to say that you lose me at the point of signing up to kill people. I’ve been nominally anti-war since like 11 years old. it isn’t actually some impossible moral choice that you can’t possibly have the context for in your early 20s (or even late teens) to decide that wanting to get your education paid for or even securing room and board is worth the price of other people’s lives. and if there was some way that being a serial killer in your own neighborhood could put food on your table and cover your healthcare, I do not think any of these people would be saying that’s justified. but somehow it’s fine when it’s brown people living in any country the US wants to extract resources from.