?100m 'Wasted' On Training Young Soldiers

[super jumbe]

Almost ?100m is wasted every year by the Ministry of Defence in training 16 and 17-year-old army recruits, campaign groups have claimed.

The report, by Child Soldiers International and ForcesWatch, found it costs the MoD twice as much to train a 16-year-old as an 18-year-old.

The organisations added that the UK was becoming "increasingly isolated" internationally in continuing to recruit people below the age of 18 into the armed forces.

The report found it cost an estimated minimum of ?88,985 to recruit and train each new soldier aged 16 to 17-and-a-half, compared with ?42,818 for each adult recruit, including salary costs.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/100m-wasted-training-young-soldiers-005345186.html#cSzsyoN

[DOUGALMCD]

One thing Britain is great at money wasting exercise.
Someone is making money out of it though.

[ajax2061]

tbh I love the forces never served as too many illness's but would of if I could of, they do a great job

Of course younger teens take more training they take more taking down a peg as they think they know it all, but when bankers take huge bonus government waste money crap what is a 100 mill to train the lads (and ladys) to serve and protect our arse's, theres worse things it could be spent on, like painting double yellows on roads where cars can not even fit down etc etc.

[Snowy79]

As someone who walked through the Army gates on my sixteenth birthday and served 24yrs 32 days I think the statistics need further scrutinising. I was listening to it on the radio today and it was mainly a bunch of lentil eating lefties arguing the case. They never even highlighted the differences between different Corps etc. Part of their arguement was made up of the amount of people failing training, haveing PTSD etc. What they failed to take a notice of was the difference in todays recruits compared to those in the 80s etc.

When I went through training it was harder than todays with little health and safety or baby sitting by junior officers and outside agencies. People dropping out of training was very rare and if they did they were looked down on as weaklings. Personal pride got you through.

As the years went on and society changed I'd see more and more people dropping out and general standards of recruit dropping. Society was producing the X Box generation. They knew they'd be looked after in civy street if they dropped out where as the older generation was pretty much looking at a low paid manual job if they failed. Today they can get greater benefits paid than they'd get in wages. They'd moan it was against their human rights to be made to go the extra mile.

The older recruits had less access to drugs or drink so brought less mental issues with them. Added to this the general education standard is lower. Some units I served with there were soldiers that couldn't read above that of an 8 year old. Even things like home life before joining the military wasn't taken into consideration. In my days most people knew who their Father was, today their lucky to know what country he came from.

In my opinion it's not the Army thats costing the money it's the way society is changing. You can bet if they failed in the Army today they'd more than likely fail in civy street just as bad if not more as they'd have easier access to drugs etc.

[Meat-Head]

Of course younger teens take more training they take more taking down a peg as they think they know it all, c.

yes good point perhaps you could then ensure they ALL have access to DK then they WILL know it all.