Should any aged service member be allowed to legally drink, at least on base?

I remember when I was in I was able to buy Beer at 18 on base. I could not buy hard alcohol unless I was 21. That was 20ish years ago though

In a controlled environment (i.e. onboard ship) I don't see a problem with it.

Im for under 21 drinking. Im also for introducing in extream moderation before 18. Teaching kids to drink responsable and what can happen if you don't. Iv seen so many hit 21 and just get hammered all the time and hopefully nothing hapened before they calm down. I know me and most of my friends that were tought responsable drinking by parents or guardians before we hit 21 havent had any issues. Once we hit 21 ya we were excited for our birthday, but didn't get stupid with it. Its like anything in life if you dont get taught a healthy respect for something your more likely to miss use it.

The way I look at it if you can die for your country then you can drink for them.

No. Zero good can come of it. You can't drink before you are 21 because you are too young and stupid. To your second point I agree with you. Raise the minimum age of enlistment to 21. That would take away a nice chunk of fresh meat though.

They are drinking before they are 21 as is. And it's not st the bars, is boyyles snuck into barracks and tents. Just have leadership be responsible and take care of those who do drink. You are a professional, you shouldn't get sloppy.

Back in the day, MILs could drink at the respective clubs and there was 3.2 beer in the barracks. Off base was whatever the state law said. That's why there was extra rail cars on the trains going north from Great Lakes up to Milwaukee as Wisconsin had 18 year OK at the time. So from my experience, there wasn't much of a problem keeping it on base but regular problems with sailors getting drunk up north and being poured into and out of the trains at 2300 to be back on base by midnight. Lots of Shore Patrol assets out there.

I am retired now, so it doesn't make any difference to share. My personal belief is that the SM is old enough to be deployed at the whim of our government, can vote, can enter into legally binding agreements without a sponsor or guardian, be tried as adult for crimes, is held accountable for their actions, is trusted with hundreds of thousands of dollars of government property - then drinking alcohol should be available to them, along with the responsibility and consequences of drinking. I will not lie and say that I have not willfully not seen underage soldiers consuming alcohol, Let's face a truth, they are going to do it, just like we did when we were underage, and if they do something stupid, then they face the same adverse action as someone over the legal age, "underage drinking" would just be another bullet on the counseling statement, along with whatever other infraction occurred. It all gets lumped into the same UCMJ packet as you cannot prosecute each infraction of the same incident separately. When I spoke to Soldiers about drinking (which was weekly), I told them all the basic stuff regarding drinking - and the consequences of being irresponsible. As long as they were not causing a scene, being disrespectful to the CQ or SDNCO, and kept a low profile while drinking, then I was not going to go out of my way to target them for counseling statements, or put them through ADAPC, or put them on commands radar.

Lots of things have arbitrary age limits. Can’t be President until you’re 35.

It really isn’t a big deal. Some rules suck. Deal with them, or when you’re 18, vote to change them. Huh, Another arbitrary age limit..

I have been retired now for 25 years. I entered in 1954 when the PX was just a small place like a mini mart today. And at that time if you were not of age and wanted drink beer then you went down an aisle that lead to the 3.2 beer for the underage drinker. Of age you could get 6.0 beer. Maybe we should go back to the "olden days?" Nah, let's just follow the rules of today. As I have before, "when you know the rules of the game then you can play."