this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2026
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They even come to your highschool class during lesson time to talk with everyone about why military is awesome and you should totally join.
There was also a few month duration each year where army members would setup a table in your school cafetaria and give snacks for talking about military or taking surveys etc.
Fun fact: the United States hasn't signed the international agreement banning child soldiers because the military allows 17-year-olds to enlist (although they don't actually start their service until they're 18).
I turned 18 in basic training. You can ship to basic while you're 17. And then go to a unit. You are not deployable to a contingency zone (the widest definition of "place you could be injured by enemy fire") until you're 18.
Later on we got a private who actually made it all the way to the unit and had to wait until his 18th birthday to join us on deployment.
That's actually fucking absurd wow. I was in the Canadian Air Cadets as a kid and even then I didn't see that level of recruiting. Like even when doing Cadet basic training on an actual air base, it was always just learning drill, shooting, and about how planes worked. I've never in my life been asked or had it suggested to me that I join the military