The average tour is/was around a year. But apparently it was often extended to 15 mos, maybe more at one point. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/world/middleeast/12military.html?_r=0
I have a relative that is on a seven-month tour in the Middle East, as we speak.
IIRC, it depends on the branch, the location of deployment, accompanied vs unaccompanied, the need, the # of previous deployments, rank, etc.
@MITer94 I just drank some water today and I’m pretty sure I would have died without it.
@superbowser12 I’m about 99.99% sure that @MITer94 was talking about drinking alcohol. And if you’re that dehydrated, I’d suggest seeking medical help.
If anyone is still confused I was just joking lol. Curious to see how well sarcasm would be detected here.
Quite well; could you detect mine?
In the second sentence definitely haha.
Kids, the army-drinking argument has already been made and it was rejected. The fact is too many teens are completely irresponsible with alcohol.
Spot on, mathyone. And states are not willing to lose their federal highway funding.
Your 20 year old marine can come home and he can’t run for president either. There are reasons why we allow young people into the military–we need them. There are reasons why we allow young people to drive–they need transportation. There isn’t a comparably compelling reason why they need to drink alcohol. You are right that it’s inconsistent but this point was argued and rejected in state legislatures years ago when drinking ages were raised.
Well, there’s no compelling reason, either, why anyone over 21 “needs to drink alcohol.” And there are lots of people over 21 that are “completely irresponsible with alcohol.” (In fact, I’d wager that there are more Americans over 21 that abuse alcohol than there are 18-20 year olds in the entire US population.) It seems to me that your positions could be used to support a return of Prohibition.
Don’t know the statistics, but that seems pretty implausible. There are irresponsible drinkers of all ages. That’s not the point.
"America has a drinking problem, and it’s getting worse. A new study shows that 32 million Americans, nearly one in seven adults, have struggled with a serious alcohol problem in the last year alone. It gets worse if you look at numbers across people’s entire lives: In that case, nearly one-third have suffered an “alcohol-use disorder.”
http://www.newsweek.com/30-percent-americans-have-had-alcohol-use-disorder-339085
And here’s data for millennials:
18-24: 31.5 million (9.9%)
http://www.marketingcharts.com/traditional/so-how-many-millennials-are-there-in-the-us-anyway-30401/
So, by definition 18-20 year olds represent far less that 31.5 million in the US population. And there are more than 32 million Americans that struggle with a “serious alcohol problem.” So, this quick google search does seem to support my assertion.
@jym626 The drinking age is indeed the point of this thread. Why set it at 21 if “there are irresponsible drinkers of all ages.”
The drinking age was 18 when I was in high school. It was commonplace for high school students to hang out in bars. I had a 14 year old friend who did this. High school kids could and did legally buy liquor and supply it to younger high school students and tweens. It was not a better situation. There were also many problems with states having different drinking ages. Kids would drive to another state to drink and then drunkenly drive back. No thanks.
Quoting from the Newsweek article cited above: “To be sure, many people grow out of this kind of behavior.” and “young and unmarried people also have higher rates of the disorder than those who are older and wedded.” Not sure how that data supports the idea that we should allow/encourage even younger people to start drinking.
My central argument in this thread has been: We establish 18 as adulthood, but then set the drinking age at 21. IMO, an adult should be able to drink within legal limits (No public intoxication, etc.)
For consistency, one could change to 21 the age for adulthood. In that case though having sex with a 20 year old would be statuary rape, and a 20 year old that commits a felony would be charged as a juvenal. I doubt that there are many people that would find these examples acceptable.
Anyway, there seems to be lots of posters untroubled by the age inconsistency. And that’s ok. I simply disagree.
I don’t think there should be a drinking age period. The allure of alcohol for many young people is that it’s proscriptive or is seemingly out of reach. Because it’s viewed as something only for adults, young people prematurely strive for maturity and drink it more. In my mom’s home country, there is no legal drinking age. Anyone at any age can walk into a store and buy alcohol. Because it’s such a normal part of their life, they don’t abuse it and there are very, very few drunk driving incidents.
If you can lay down your life for your country at age 18 you surely should be able to buy a beer.
And I don’t even drink.
The fact that an out-of-the-blue post from some single poster turned into such a big discussion shows how much people wish they could talk about this stuff.
I sometimes wish people were this candid in real life.
A thread on coffee addiction would probably also spark spirited discussions 
You must be new around here. A thread about clam farts led to a very spirited discussion.