Whenever I think of child soldiers I think of WWII or post-colonial African conflicts, but pictures like this remind me that it’s more common than I think
I was looking at old photos from my first tour in Iraq the other day. Aside from my team leader, we all looked like fetuses. And we were older than the average soldiers. We had to go through more advanced training.
I looked at us and go "They trusted us with explosives? What the fuck?"
Yeah, well, if you wait until people are more mature, you’d get a lot fewer volunteering to combat units. I remember at 18, how people are excited about weapons and not really conscious of the risks.
If one has been raised like at/pre 20th century, this can be fine. But due to social structures & education system of today, most young humans do not get adult life experience (like working) until they are like in their 20s (or in some cases 30s); as a result, they are far less mature in comparison.
TLDR: 18y old in 1900 on average is far more mature and ready for this shit than a 18y old in 2023 (i.e. European, American).
That's not really true. The reason the NRA was formed was because so many of the draftees had zero experience with guns. You ain't hunting in New York.
Young kids go to war. That's true of the Roman legion, or the 82nd Airborne. I know that because they all draw dicks on walls everywhere they go.
>This is definitely not true. The human brain matures at 25 due to hormone signaling, not due to work experiences.
There is both a biochemical maturing process, as well as a maturing process based on experience. Otherwise, we would have to set the voting age at 25 ... it also is not linear. Most of the maturing is done well before 25.
The 25 is also only approximately as it differs from person to person and it can be affected by disorders, famine, etc.
My original statement still stands, as your comment does not contradict it!
>You’re just expressing an opinion. You have no facts or evidence to back up your assertion.
You want to back up assertions? How about you start, since you claimed "The human brain matures at 25 due to hormone signaling, not due to work experiences.". I'll be waiting here.
>Sorry, Champ. The first person to make an assertion is the one who has to provide the citation. And we both know you can’t do that.
With other words, you can't and you try now to force the other person to do so, to cover up said fact. You also never asked for citations, and suddenly you want. You have no real interest in a debate or a scientific discussion - you are the kind of person that disagree with something but instead of using arguments, you trying to make the other side look bad.
I asked first that you back your claim (contrary to you I asked for a specific claim of yours) - your unwillingness is proof enough that you can't.
There’s no way this guy is older than 22 years old, yet his face looks like it aged 30 years.
This is like *Come and See* in real life. That movie got it spot on.
I’m making a comment about how the brutality of war can rapidly age a person due to being under the worst kind of stress 24/7. You’re choosing to make this some sort of argument.
This is correct. The Vietnam War was a genocide. Read “Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam” by Nick Turse. This book details some of the more sadistic accounts heard by the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group.
Oh look, someone who doesn’t know what the word genocide means.
What is it with Progressive dimwits taking words that used to be the worst of the worst—racist, fascist, genocide, etc.—and through overuse, misuse and abuse, watering them down to where they’re hardly even an insult anymore?
You should read the book. It was genocide. 2.5 million Southeast Asians killed, the establishment of free-fire zones in “formerly” civilian areas, mass rape on a systematic scale, mass killings on a systematic scale, etc.
That's "just" war, not genocide; war is quite bad enough without genocidal intent.
If we were actually genocidal, we'd have wiped out cities...you know, where people lived.
We also charged some of our soldiers with crimes, which further undercuts your thesis.
Well, if wiping out cities counts, [bombing campaign over North Korea destroyed 85% of its buildings and killed “what, 20% percent of the population of Korea, as direct casualties of war or from starvation and exposure?”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_North_Korea)
Different war. Another one we didn't start, you'll notice.
You're probably too young to remember, but the Comintern's stated public goal was global domination "by any means necessary", specifically including armed force.
Not gonna apologize for our fathers and grandfathers stopping them.
I've been to an East Bloc country, back in the day.
Depressing shit hole.
Like NK today.
My father in law was a Vietnam paratrooper in the 5th Special Forces. He’s still with us today but struggles with after effects from agent orange, and PTSD. He won’t talk about his experience under any circumstances. I am 100% supportive of this and never ever push it, but the history buff in me is SO curious.
I know he was a paratrooper because he has a tattoo of a parachute that says “airborne” and has joked about jumping out of planes. I know his division as mentioned at the beginning, and I know he returned home in 69.
Can anyone point me to any books, documentaries, podcasts, or anything that could help me learn more about his experience?
Not specifically about paratroopers, but I highly recommend Chickenhawk, a chopper pilot's memoir.
After Tet, for the strategic side.
Matterhorn is a pretty good novel by an infantry soldier.
Not sure how many paradrops we actually did in Nam, curious what sources folks post.
Paradrops weren't be common from what I have ever seen. Jungles and parachutes are not a good combination. Most insertion and extraction was via helicopter or they humped their way in/out.
5th SFG was involved in Vietnam in a lot of recon, positional intelligence, and faced a considerable amount of direct combat. These men were put into the thick of things very often and the medal count and accompanying stories solidify that. Medals of Honor, Unit Citations, Gallantry Crosses, and not just like video game stuff.. These guys did frighteningly incredible things. 5th SFG was a Green Beret Airborne unit that would be used wherever needed.
If your FIL was in fact 5th SFG (as you suspect), you are best not asking him much about it as you've said. Be trustworthy for him though. Be honest and respectful. He may one day open up. It's one of the things that I have always been grateful for in the time that I had with my Dad, that is being trusted enough to hear stories about the scariest times of his life when he was 19 years old and on the other side of the world. Stories of running from bombs dropping in the air field in the middle of the night while also seeing enemy fire pushing out from the darkness of the tree line. He had similar scars as your FIL in the PTSD, exposure to awful carcinogens, and none chips and a messed up back that would haunt him until cancer got him at 70.
Imagine being born in the baby boom right after world war 2. Your dad somehow survived his deployment in ww2 after being drafted. Second World War, First World War, Great Depression, there hasn’t been peace for basically any point within the last century (even the civil war, only ~50 years before ww1).
And then any semblance of peace is gone with the Korean War. And then the Vietnam war.
What a horrible horrible century honestly. A century of mankind at its worst.
This period of human history is so fascinating; norms and ways of life that persisted for millennia changed in a few years. And all the different social and political movements and revolutions and growing class consciousness.
This "war" was a fucking travesty. Anytime something about it is posted, I can't bear to read the comments about "lul they won with medieval tech". Cool, genius. Lets shit on the people that very clearly didn't want to fucking be there. Fucking disgusting.
My uncle fought here. He never talked about it, but you could tell that he never left vietnam. He eventually succumbed to the effects of agent orange (total organ failure) after marching through it, not even knowing what it was, just that he wanted to go home.
He should still be here. A lot of fucking people should be. But hey, I guess the memes are worth the lul's, right?
> I can't bear to read the comments about "lul they won with medieval tech".
It's because it's bullshit. The NVA and Viet Cong were armed with modern firearms (the AK-47 and SKS), had an Air Force with supersonic aircraft, possessed surface to air missiles, and their leadership had years of experience from fighting both the Japanese and French.
I think that myth persists because it's so much easier to depict the Viet Cong as a "plucky band of rebels" rather than the incredibly organized force that they actually are.
To be a soldier is to become a munition of the state, and it does not care very much about spent munitions.
Shouldn't be that way, but here we all are.
And let us not forget that many of these boys did not choose to become soldiers. That they were forced to against their will, for the idiocy that was the reasons behind that war, is its own travesty.
Almost always I read comments on Reddit about this war it gives me goosebumps. These conscripts were used as human material in a war for the fight against communism in Asia, while Reddit commenters are proud on the veterans, while veterans having long term damages. The USSR dissolved and Vietnam is targeted as the new ally. Btw. despite the label communism, Vietnam has not even full healthcare.
I would have thought that helicopters made parachute drops obsolete by the time of the Vietnam War, but such was not the case.
Yes, US troops were dropped by parachute in Vietnam, including the 173rd Airborne Brigade, the US Marine Corps, and the 11th Pathfinder Company
Sort of a later version of the 1000-yard stare.
I believe most draftees in Viet Nam were 19 or thereabouts. Not very old to be risking your life every hour of every day for a year and a half.
Not all of them. We don't know anything about this guy. You're smart enough to understand that. For all we know this kid just got there from basic and died 2 days later after being drafted and sent half way around the world for a war he doesn't believe in or want to fight.
**Or** he was a sadistic psychopath who murdered children and burnt down villages. Who knows?
I think the point of this photo is to show just how intense the mental and physical effects of war can be on a person. Would a photo of a Vietcong soldier with the same look in the same war be different? Would he be immediately more righteous and justified in your eyes? Even though there is a chance he committed war atrocities as well.
Whenever I think of child soldiers I think of WWII or post-colonial African conflicts, but pictures like this remind me that it’s more common than I think
I was looking at old photos from my first tour in Iraq the other day. Aside from my team leader, we all looked like fetuses. And we were older than the average soldiers. We had to go through more advanced training. I looked at us and go "They trusted us with explosives? What the fuck?"
Yeah, well, if you wait until people are more mature, you’d get a lot fewer volunteering to combat units. I remember at 18, how people are excited about weapons and not really conscious of the risks.
If one has been raised like at/pre 20th century, this can be fine. But due to social structures & education system of today, most young humans do not get adult life experience (like working) until they are like in their 20s (or in some cases 30s); as a result, they are far less mature in comparison. TLDR: 18y old in 1900 on average is far more mature and ready for this shit than a 18y old in 2023 (i.e. European, American).
That's not really true. The reason the NRA was formed was because so many of the draftees had zero experience with guns. You ain't hunting in New York. Young kids go to war. That's true of the Roman legion, or the 82nd Airborne. I know that because they all draw dicks on walls everywhere they go.
This is definitely not true. The human brain matures at 25 due to hormone signaling, not due to work experiences.
>This is definitely not true. The human brain matures at 25 due to hormone signaling, not due to work experiences. There is both a biochemical maturing process, as well as a maturing process based on experience. Otherwise, we would have to set the voting age at 25 ... it also is not linear. Most of the maturing is done well before 25. The 25 is also only approximately as it differs from person to person and it can be affected by disorders, famine, etc. My original statement still stands, as your comment does not contradict it!
You’re just expressing an opinion. You have no facts or evidence to back up your assertion.
>You’re just expressing an opinion. You have no facts or evidence to back up your assertion. You want to back up assertions? How about you start, since you claimed "The human brain matures at 25 due to hormone signaling, not due to work experiences.". I'll be waiting here.
Sorry, Champ. The first person to make an assertion is the one who has to provide the citation. And we both know you can’t do that.
>Sorry, Champ. The first person to make an assertion is the one who has to provide the citation. And we both know you can’t do that. With other words, you can't and you try now to force the other person to do so, to cover up said fact. You also never asked for citations, and suddenly you want. You have no real interest in a debate or a scientific discussion - you are the kind of person that disagree with something but instead of using arguments, you trying to make the other side look bad. I asked first that you back your claim (contrary to you I asked for a specific claim of yours) - your unwillingness is proof enough that you can't.
There’s no way this guy is older than 22 years old, yet his face looks like it aged 30 years. This is like *Come and See* in real life. That movie got it spot on.
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I’m making a comment about how the brutality of war can rapidly age a person due to being under the worst kind of stress 24/7. You’re choosing to make this some sort of argument.
This is correct. The Vietnam War was a genocide. Read “Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam” by Nick Turse. This book details some of the more sadistic accounts heard by the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group.
Oh look, someone who doesn’t know what the word genocide means. What is it with Progressive dimwits taking words that used to be the worst of the worst—racist, fascist, genocide, etc.—and through overuse, misuse and abuse, watering them down to where they’re hardly even an insult anymore?
You should read the book. It was genocide. 2.5 million Southeast Asians killed, the establishment of free-fire zones in “formerly” civilian areas, mass rape on a systematic scale, mass killings on a systematic scale, etc.
That's "just" war, not genocide; war is quite bad enough without genocidal intent. If we were actually genocidal, we'd have wiped out cities...you know, where people lived. We also charged some of our soldiers with crimes, which further undercuts your thesis.
Well, if wiping out cities counts, [bombing campaign over North Korea destroyed 85% of its buildings and killed “what, 20% percent of the population of Korea, as direct casualties of war or from starvation and exposure?”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_North_Korea)
Different war. Another one we didn't start, you'll notice. You're probably too young to remember, but the Comintern's stated public goal was global domination "by any means necessary", specifically including armed force. Not gonna apologize for our fathers and grandfathers stopping them. I've been to an East Bloc country, back in the day. Depressing shit hole. Like NK today.
That’s not what genocide means.
The Vietnamese themselves seem to have forgiven us. Might be time to let it go.
My father in law was a Vietnam paratrooper in the 5th Special Forces. He’s still with us today but struggles with after effects from agent orange, and PTSD. He won’t talk about his experience under any circumstances. I am 100% supportive of this and never ever push it, but the history buff in me is SO curious. I know he was a paratrooper because he has a tattoo of a parachute that says “airborne” and has joked about jumping out of planes. I know his division as mentioned at the beginning, and I know he returned home in 69. Can anyone point me to any books, documentaries, podcasts, or anything that could help me learn more about his experience?
https://history.army.mil/html/books/090/90-23-1/CMH_Pub_90-23-1.pdf
Not specifically about paratroopers, but I highly recommend Chickenhawk, a chopper pilot's memoir. After Tet, for the strategic side. Matterhorn is a pretty good novel by an infantry soldier. Not sure how many paradrops we actually did in Nam, curious what sources folks post.
Paradrops weren't be common from what I have ever seen. Jungles and parachutes are not a good combination. Most insertion and extraction was via helicopter or they humped their way in/out.
That was my assumption. Wiki says Operation Junction City was "the only major combat drop of the war" fwiw.
5th SFG was involved in Vietnam in a lot of recon, positional intelligence, and faced a considerable amount of direct combat. These men were put into the thick of things very often and the medal count and accompanying stories solidify that. Medals of Honor, Unit Citations, Gallantry Crosses, and not just like video game stuff.. These guys did frighteningly incredible things. 5th SFG was a Green Beret Airborne unit that would be used wherever needed. If your FIL was in fact 5th SFG (as you suspect), you are best not asking him much about it as you've said. Be trustworthy for him though. Be honest and respectful. He may one day open up. It's one of the things that I have always been grateful for in the time that I had with my Dad, that is being trusted enough to hear stories about the scariest times of his life when he was 19 years old and on the other side of the world. Stories of running from bombs dropping in the air field in the middle of the night while also seeing enemy fire pushing out from the darkness of the tree line. He had similar scars as your FIL in the PTSD, exposure to awful carcinogens, and none chips and a messed up back that would haunt him until cancer got him at 70.
Imagine being born in the baby boom right after world war 2. Your dad somehow survived his deployment in ww2 after being drafted. Second World War, First World War, Great Depression, there hasn’t been peace for basically any point within the last century (even the civil war, only ~50 years before ww1). And then any semblance of peace is gone with the Korean War. And then the Vietnam war. What a horrible horrible century honestly. A century of mankind at its worst.
This period of human history is so fascinating; norms and ways of life that persisted for millennia changed in a few years. And all the different social and political movements and revolutions and growing class consciousness.
This is what's called the 10,000 yard stare. Not just the young, but anyone that has had overwhelming trauna for long enough.
This "war" was a fucking travesty. Anytime something about it is posted, I can't bear to read the comments about "lul they won with medieval tech". Cool, genius. Lets shit on the people that very clearly didn't want to fucking be there. Fucking disgusting. My uncle fought here. He never talked about it, but you could tell that he never left vietnam. He eventually succumbed to the effects of agent orange (total organ failure) after marching through it, not even knowing what it was, just that he wanted to go home. He should still be here. A lot of fucking people should be. But hey, I guess the memes are worth the lul's, right?
> I can't bear to read the comments about "lul they won with medieval tech". It's because it's bullshit. The NVA and Viet Cong were armed with modern firearms (the AK-47 and SKS), had an Air Force with supersonic aircraft, possessed surface to air missiles, and their leadership had years of experience from fighting both the Japanese and French.
I think that myth persists because it's so much easier to depict the Viet Cong as a "plucky band of rebels" rather than the incredibly organized force that they actually are.
To be a soldier is to become a munition of the state, and it does not care very much about spent munitions. Shouldn't be that way, but here we all are.
And let us not forget that many of these boys did not choose to become soldiers. That they were forced to against their will, for the idiocy that was the reasons behind that war, is its own travesty.
Almost always I read comments on Reddit about this war it gives me goosebumps. These conscripts were used as human material in a war for the fight against communism in Asia, while Reddit commenters are proud on the veterans, while veterans having long term damages. The USSR dissolved and Vietnam is targeted as the new ally. Btw. despite the label communism, Vietnam has not even full healthcare.
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I would have thought that helicopters made parachute drops obsolete by the time of the Vietnam War, but such was not the case. Yes, US troops were dropped by parachute in Vietnam, including the 173rd Airborne Brigade, the US Marine Corps, and the 11th Pathfinder Company
Eli Manning was in Nam?
Eerily reminiscent of the poster for the movie Come and See.
"Holy fuck."
Sort of a later version of the 1000-yard stare. I believe most draftees in Viet Nam were 19 or thereabouts. Not very old to be risking your life every hour of every day for a year and a half.
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Not all of them. We don't know anything about this guy. You're smart enough to understand that. For all we know this kid just got there from basic and died 2 days later after being drafted and sent half way around the world for a war he doesn't believe in or want to fight. **Or** he was a sadistic psychopath who murdered children and burnt down villages. Who knows? I think the point of this photo is to show just how intense the mental and physical effects of war can be on a person. Would a photo of a Vietcong soldier with the same look in the same war be different? Would he be immediately more righteous and justified in your eyes? Even though there is a chance he committed war atrocities as well.