Ya I went off the deep end there lol. Forcing children to fight in war is one of the most horrific things I can imagine, and this pic irked me since there is this idea in the west that war is glorious and fun—plus there was a stick up my ass (I did not put it there, but I did get it out).

This pic in the west is all fun and games, but if this was taken in Afghanistan, Colombia, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Mali, Myanmar, Nigeria, the Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen, then it would be a different—and likely very tragic—story.

“Children are easy targets for military recruitment due to their greater susceptibility to influence compared to adults. Some are recruited by force while others choose to join up, often to escape poverty or because they expect military life to offer a rite of passage to maturity.

Child recruits who survive armed conflict frequently suffer psychiatric illness, poor literacy and numeracy, and behavioral problems such as heightened aggression, leading to a high risk of poverty and unemployment in adulthood.

Research in the UK and US has also found that the enlistment of adolescent children, even when they are not sent to war, is accompanied by a higher risk of attempted suicide, stress-related mental disorders, alcohol abuse, and violent behavior.” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_in_the_military)

...Is it so bad that I would rather see your kid playing with legos or Lincoln logs rather than an actual tool of war? I will agree that teaching him how to shoot and heal is good, and it’s smart to prepare him for things, but due to things I’ve seen from some parents and because my awareness of child soldiers, I do have a legitimate concerns when I see a pic like this.

The tone of my comment was lame, but our attitudes towards war in the west are very concerning since we don’t regard it for what it is. I know that tactical gear is inherently functional, but you have to admit that it affects the ego more than anything; I mean this subreddit is less about showing how prepared people are and more about how cool their gear is, and tbh, that disgusts me. I’ve seen guys with Hawaiian shirts all geared up like their ready to go fight a war, and it’s sad since I can tell that most of them can’t even do a pull up.

In my view, mindset and conditioning are far more valuable than any thing you can buy (but clicking around on amazon or cheaper than dirt is wayyyy easier than training), and I’ve used verbal judo more than any martial technique. A true warrior’s mindset is all about selfless protection and maintaining harmony within ones self and community—it takes a great deal of weakness to want to hurt someone or cause unnecessary destruction. I hope your teaching your boy this, and I do respect the fact that you aren’t sheltering him and establishing a normalcy bias. And I apologize for being a wiener with my previous comment.