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Originally Posted by cback0220
They said that the washout rate among 17-18-19 year olds was getting pretty high and they wanted to stop that. Another thing that they want is some college education.
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I don't know about changes to the 18x contract, but I can offer anecdotal evidence (from going through SOPC 1 and 2 and being part of two different Q course classes) that 18 and 19 year olds don't do well in the course.
My original SOPC class is finishing up the Q course right about now. We started out with tons of 18 year olds, but not many of them made it. I think that the biggest reason many failed is that these guys had never lived away from Mom and had never had to assume any kind of responsibility before joining.
For the most part they didn't have the maturity or discipline. They stay out late and then sleep through formation the next day. (I did that too when I was 19, but the difference is that you don't get kicked out of college for sleeping through class. It's very likely you will get kicked out of Student Co for things like that.)
On a jump, while under canopy, a fellow pulled out of his pocket a little toy action figure with a mini-parachute and released it. It drifted right over all the cadre. Guess how old he was? 19.
A few Echo classes back 8 guys got caught with cell phones on the main field training exercise. It was no suprise to me that 7 out of 8 were X-Rays, and mostly younger ones. They couldn't go 14 days without talking to their girlfriends in high school, I guess. You just don't see E-5s from the 82nd willing to jeopardize their careers over a couple of phone calls.
On the other hand, the older X-rays - the E-4 with degrees, and there are a lot of them in the course - succeed at a much higher rate, from my limited observation. I am not saying that a college degree helps in the course, but it shows that one has spent 4 or 5 years in the (semi) real world and has grown up a bit.
Another factor is that the 18 x-rays that came in as E-4s (I'll call them E-4s rather than college boys) are more "focused" on SF, and in a sense have more to lose if they quit. They gave up, or turned down, better paying civilian jobs for a shot at SF. Or they turned down OCS, preferring to enlist and try to go straight to SF. All of the E-4s I talked to said that they would not have joined had it not been for the chance to be SF. So in a sense they are less cavalier than the younger guys. (I'm not saying they don't want to be SF for the wrong reasons, or that they aren't deluded about exactly what SF is, because many are. That's a different subject.) Contrast that with an 18 year old that is going to enlist anyway and the recruiter talks him into an 18x-ray contract, and guess which one is more likely to quit in SFAS.
Never mind the degree, a 24 year old that has been living on his own and supporting himself for 4 years seems to be more likely to finish the course.
Lest anyone think I have it out for young guys, let me add that there are more than a few 18 year olds that are squared away, and there are 26 year olds with degrees who gave up good jobs that are sh*tbags and quitters. And remember, the 18 year olds that eventually make it will be closer to 21 by the time they make it to a team.
Rant over. (If you couldn't guess, I'm one of the oldest guys in my class.)
Edited to correct spelling.
Great........
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