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Opinion: We Need to Rethink the Way We Approach Military Combat

Writer's picture: Alison BarreraAlison Barrera

Should we refrain from certain actions even if they offer greater benefits to the majority? In the U.S., the military promises to ensure the safety of its land and citizens—but at what cost?

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, in 2018, up to 70% of new Marine Corps recruits alone were aged 17 to 24, a common figure in militaries around the world. These young adults, driven by underdeveloped decision-making abilities and outside pressures to enlist, are not fully capable of giving consent to the risks associated with combat. Consent, in this context, is defined as an individual’s ability to understand information encompassing the objectives, potential risks, and expected advantages with full clarification. 

Brookings

Despite this risk, society permits them to endanger their lives to protect US political and economic interests abroad. While many roles in the military don’t often involve combat, enlistees are placed into combat roles based on testing and branching needs. 

Ursula Le Guin’s work, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas (1973), proves a useful moral takeaway. The work centers around a city where genuine happiness prevails for all citizens, except for one child who must suffer. Through evoking emotional resonance with the boy’s pain, the text highlights that true moral principles deem sacrificing one individual for the well-being of the majority as immoral when the sacrifice is involuntary. 

This lesson is similarly applicable to the enlistment of young adults in the military. To hold moral ground, the U.S. must recognize the imperative to change the age requirements and ensure clear information about the risks.

Allowing young adults to engage in military combat while still neurologically unable to provide full consent, is immoral. Many Americans allow this because they believe doing so helps ensure that the military is able to protect the U.S. However, combat zones pose serious risks: gunshot wounds, lost limbs, brain injuries, and more. The University of Rochester shows that 17-24 year olds make more emotion-based decisions due to immaturity of the brain, which is not finished until about 25 years of age. Financial insecurity and family military legacies often lead to enlistment, but it’s important to note that young adults tend to prioritize the short-term benefits without fully comprehending the consequences of combat. 

U.S. Department of Defense

Young adults may decide to enlist in the military because of financial insecurity and the pressure of family military legacies. As they mature past the age of 24, these factors still play a role in their decision-making. However, it is crucial to recognize that young adults are likely to focus on the immediate benefits of financial security and social approval from their families, often without fully comprehending the potential consequences of combat: PTSD, physical wounds, and lifelong disabilities that persist within the individual long past the timespan of combat itself. Recruitment has slowed in large part due to the risks of combat and inadequate support for veterans. 

Consequently, it is impossible to assume they could give informed and rational consent to enlist. Disregarding their consent undermines their capacity to make informed choices, exposing them to potential harm, exploitation, and a disregard for their autonomy. The consequences of this disregard go beyond physical harm—it also constitutes a moral failure in how we treat our youth. 


Independent Australia

LeGuin highlights the immorality of involuntary sacrifice for the happiness of the majority. The citizens of Omelas live happily, dependent on the suffering of a single child. The people of Omelas know the child endures isolation in a dark basement closet, deprived of sunlight, barely surviving on meager portions of food and water. When the citizens of Omelas visit the child, they might kick it, and they never speak to it, “but the child, who has not always lived in the room and can remember sunlight and its mother’s voice, sometimes speaks. ‘I will be good.’ it says, ‘Please let me out. I will be good!’ They never answer.” 

In recognizing the child’s dreadful existence and its full awareness of the horrors it endures, one might feel disgust, sadness, and the instinctual urge to help the child. The text does not provide details regarding the consequences for the city of Omelas if the child were to leave. LeGuin’s broader moral lesson is that altruism must be exerted to ensure the safety and prosperity of all, rather than sacrifice few for the many. 

This can be applied to defensive wars, where a nation relies on its military to protect itself from invasion by another country. In Omelas, the suffering of the few is accepted to maintain the overall prosperity of the community; in defensive wars, young soldiers face risks of combat without fully comprehending the implications. It is crucial for society to reject any ambiguity concerning the well-being of living humans, even in the name of service.

Given that young adults cannot fully consent to military combat risks, the U.S. government has a moral obligation to act. 

1 Comment


Kaydence Chandler
Kaydence Chandler
Sep 29, 2024

very well written, insightful article!! 10/10

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