Lawmaker Wants Lower Soldier Drinking Age/What say you, DU?

I don't have a problem with this, but I question Pettis' motives.

Didn't we freely give Indians alcohol in order to keep them docile, all the time robbing them blind?

MADISON, Wis. - One Wisconsin lawmaker figures if the U.S. military trusts 19-year-olds with a $10 million tank, then the state should trust them with a beer.

State Rep. Mark Pettis, a Republican who served in the Navy, is pushing a bill that would drop the drinking age to 19 for Wisconsin soldiers — but only if the federal government agrees it will not yank an estimated $50 million a year in highway aid.

A federal law ties federal highway dollars to compliance by the states with the required drinking age of 21.

"We're treating these young men and women as adults when they're at war. But we treat them like teenagers when they're here in the states," he said.

Pettis admits his proposal will be a tough sell unless Wisconsin gets the federal government's approval — or at least permission to start a pilot program to prove it will not cause more accidents or other problems opponents associate with a younger drinking age.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050531/ap_on_re_us/drinking_age_soldiers

They might not be very open about it but they have enough 21+ buddies to go and get them the booze they want.

time to throw us all in prison :dunce:

I say let them have a beer. They need one!

We don't want young, impressionable Americans drinking Canadian beer for their first time! It will kill them! Which reminds me of an old Monty Python skit...

Why is drinking American beer like making love in a canoe?
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because it's fucking close to water.
thank you, I'll be here all night. Don't forget to tip your server.

Why can't they have a beer first?

Hobo


:beer:

did you not see my comment in the original post?

I understand your point of keeping them drunk and docile. It's an angle that could use some consideration. I'm not sure that's the reason he made the suggestion, or not. I could see it being a division if the younger people are excluded from being able to hang out with their older peers in a social setting, yet they are allowed to die beside them in battle.

If I'm not mistaken the reasoning behind raising the drinking age was that young people weren't responsible enough until they were 21, or so studies showed.

If you are going to subscribe to that belief then you'd also have to allow that they aren't responsible enough to be signing up for the military. Fighting in wars and making life or death decisions.

That's where the logic of the drinking age argument tends to lose me.

I hope this makes a bit more sense. :)

(in an illegal, unjust war) then you're old enough to drink!

NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!

NO!

I will not put one of my shipmates into the ground because their legal age outstripped their judgment.

I swear by all that's holy if one of the Wisconsin sailors at my command get into an accident because of a reduced drinking age I will personally make a road trip to that state, put my boondocker up Rep.Pettis's ass, and stomp him around like a effin' snowshoe.

(Yes, I am upset, and I will put the mouse down and step away from the keyboard...)(Again...)

Give them some life experience first. They will be able to handle the stresses of the military better and perhaps be not so likely to over-react to things, though this might just be part of the lack of training and support in the military right now (don't bother flaming me for my poorly worded thought here please).

It should extend to all of the 18 year olds. Just impose draconian penalties for DUI, the republiCONs do draconian very well. It is one of the few things that they do well, almost as well as lying.

If you can help chose the course for the nation, and sure as hell if you can put your life on the line for it, you can drink.

Either someone is an "adult" in the eyes of the fed/state gov., or they aren't.

At least when I was in the service 15 years ago, it was like that...

I agree with having the drinking and military service ages match. Hey, how about a minimum age of 21 for the military! No more impressionable, unformed kids in the service! Sounds good to me!

I got in trouble for so-called underage drinking at 19 on a military base.

ible for your actions and be thrown in jail with serial murderers, then you're old enough to drink.

and a driving age of 18.

Let kids see what alcohol is going to do while they're still riding bicycles. Road rash will go a long way in convincing them that NO, they don't drive better when they're drunk.

It's the way Europe does it and they have far fewer problems than we do.

Me? I was raised on beer as a beverage with meals. I discovered it could get me addled at 13. I was WAY over it by the age of 15, for the reason I stated, a full year before I could drive a car.

And I've never driven under the influence.

Haven't they discovered the time honored tradition of bribing Personnel Clerks?

Prices have probably gone up from $10 going rate when I was in, but they make a helluva lot more dough than the princely $79 per month we got to "defend" our country and get drunk on in 1961. Or, is that get drunk and defend our country from the "enemy" of the week?

Join up and drink up.

Eve of Destruction
You're old enough for war, but not for votin'
and even the Jordan River, has bodies floatin'

You're old enough for war, but not for drinkin'
and even the Euphrates River, has bodies sinkin'

then I can go to a bar and not have to compete with the 16 year olds.

Same fucking thing happened then.

"Old enough to go get yourself shot up, old enough to drink"

Fuck.

This is getting weirder and weirder and weirder

If you're old enough to be sent ff to war and die, you should be able to drink legally.

I don't know about this Wisconsin lawmaker, but I've always had a real problem with the concept of the "drinking age" not being the same as the "legal adult age".

Way back when in the 70's the age to become a legal adult was changed from 21 to 18. Later, the federal government decided to change the drinking age to 21. We didn't used to have a drinking age.
(side rant on how they blackmailed the states on this omitted)

I firmly believe that whatever age is set to be an adult you should gain all rights and responsibilities. So long as drinking alcohol is considered to be a legal, it should be legal for ALL adults.
If 18-20 year olds are not mature enough to participate in this legal activity, then they cannot be mature enough to enter into legal contracts, vote, serve in the military or be tried and convicted as adults. Period.

"Gee, you get to drink now too but if you go to college you will have to wait to buy beer until you're 21" (We all know plenty drink anyway but this just smacks of a ploy to raise recruitment goals.)

how about not sending soliders to die based on comtemptable lies instead? thanks.

And it was, almost everywhere across the country.

:dem:

What's wrong with this picture?