Thread: 1st time enlistment age raised to 39

Originally Posted by shek

This is not a bad thing. Why not give someone that wants to serve their country a chance?

There is a difference between giving someone that opportunity, and abusing it. That is what this gentleman is pointing out. I'm 20 years old, and if I got deployed the only effect on my life would be that college would be delayed a couple of years. Big deal. However there are a lot of 28-40 year old guys out there who have careers, families, children, who are willing to go serve their country for a tour.... but when that tour is arbitrarily extended, or they are used for two one and a half year tours (as I recall, the actual tour isn't that long, but all the precombat training takes up a lot of time, and isn't counted in the total amount of time served overseas) in the space of four years... well that is very much abusing the reserves. You will not get men back if you treat them like that. They didn't sign up for active duty, and in the reserves you don't get the same active duty benefits... therefore it is hardly fair to treat us like we are active duty. If the Pentagon does that, they will find reserve and national guard units melt away.