http://www.pointblank-dm.com/archive/2005/mar/033105/cover.shtml

In an effort to increase its ranks for coming wars, the U.S. military
is recruiting - and paying - children as young as 14 years old for
future combat duty.

Carla Bloomer agrees with Tom that poor children have few options, but
rankles at the suggestion that selling military service to a child is
an answer to the problem. And she didn't even know this was an issue
until she learned a recruiter had talked to her 14-year-old son and
convinced him to sign up.

"He's not smart enough to make a decision like that at this point in
his life," she says. "That recruiter came in and played to his
teenager's sense of invincibility and know-it-all attitude and
convinced him this was the best thing for him to do. In the end, I had
to give in and let him sign up."

hurc ast