Sounding Off:

It always amazes me how every generation fights the drinking age. Usually the main reason is the military one. If they are old enough to put their lives on the line in combat, they are old enough to drink. Eric Paine (“Ballots and beer — at 18,” April 21) is not old enough to have seen the results of a lowered drinking age in my time (I am 63).

In this generation of “helicopter parents” and children, whose main decision has been what game to play on the Internet, I don’t believe that they are ready for either option. I have talked to parents whose 18-year-olds have gone into the service, and they agree with me that at the very least a soldier should not be assigned to combat before age 21.

At age 18 people are not old or mature enough to realize what they are doing when they sign up for the military. Because of my age I read the obituaries on a daily basis. Every day there are young men (and women) whose lives have ended before 21. It is terrible enough when the person is in his late 20s or 30s, but it is horrific if they are younger than 21 and starting out in life.

I realize that the argument against this is there is a shortage of individuals available for military service. And 18-year-olds are much easier to convince than 21-year-olds. And what will the high school graduates with no college ambition do? Does this mean we need to sacrifice young lives? I don’t think so. Just wait until they are a bit older — and 21 still isn’t that old — then send them into combat.

The reality of life will be clearer and their judgment will have improved through three years of non-combat military training.

Finally, I went to college in the 1960s and ’70s when some of the states had the drinking age set at 18. Binge drinking was rampant. It is part of college, unfortunately. It won’t go away by letting kids drink at a younger age.

We live in a different society than our forbears whose young children worked on the farm and in factories.

Four hundred years ago people were old at 35 and dead at 45. The stages of our lives were smaller — children had to grow up at a young age and were parents and soldiers in their teens.

The average age of a bride has risen considerably in the last century.

Isn’t it time we rethink what is the actual maturity age for a person in the 21st century? I think so.

Eighteen-year-olds are not, for the most part, grown ups in the protective environment they grow up in this day and age.

CAROLYN L. CARR lives on Balboa Island.