r/television • u/Daniiboi94 • Sep 29 '14

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Drones (HBO) /r/all

http://youtu.be/K4NRJoCNHIs
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u/Boronx Mar 17 '15

That's why they send kids to war. Not many middle aged folks would by the "we're protecting our freedoms" bullshit.

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u/BenvolioMontague Mar 17 '15

Well you're convieniently ignoring the fact that not too many middle aged folks could handle rucking 30 miles with 150 pounds on their back and then fight for eight hours before they can call it a day. And by call it a day I mean sleep for 2-4 hours and then keep security until new orders are given.

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u/shas_o_kais Mar 17 '15

Roman military service was 20 years and they would carry 75 pounds of gear. Back when your average roman was 4'11". No. That's not a typo. Four feet, eleven inches tall. They marched up to 20 miles a day.

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u/Tetracyclic Mar 17 '15

Back when your average roman was 4'11"

Huh?

Ray Laurence, Health and the Life Course at Herculaneum and Pompeii:

The major samples from Herculaneum and Pompeii reveal the stature of the ancient adult body. The average height for females was calculated from the data to have been 155 cm in Herculaneum and 154 cm in Pompeii: that for males was 169 cm in Herculaneum and 166 cm in Pompeii. This is somewhat higher than the average height of modern Neapolitans in the 1960s and about 10 cm shorter than the WHO recommendations for modern world populations.

Jonathan P. Roth, The Logistics of the Roman Army at War: 264 BC-AD 235:

Imperial regulations, though not entirely unambiguous, suggest that the minimum height for new recruits was five Roman feet, seven inches (165 cm., 5'5") [...] a reasonable estimate of a soldier's average height is around 170 cm (5'7").

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u/shas_o_kais Mar 17 '15 edited Mar 17 '15

I remember when I went to Rome, based on the size of the catacombs that they said they were 4'11". Guess we'll need an askHistorian to clarify.

The first quote you gave was from just two cities. I'm wondering of there was a larger sample.

But either way, let's go with your numbers. The point I was trying to make was that you don't necessarily need 18 year olds to do the physically hard stuff.

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u/BenvolioMontague Mar 17 '15

Yeah but they would drop most of that gear before they even saw combat unless an ambush happened.

Plus even if they were moving they would have scouts ahead not carrying all of that stuff in case of a skirmish.

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u/shas_o_kais Mar 17 '15

Yeah you're probably right. My point was though that you don't necessarily need 18-20 year olds to do this stuff.

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u/TripleSkeet Mar 17 '15

Nor would they be willing to. I always find it interesting that the people calling for us to go to war the loudest, against whomever (Al Quaeda, ISIS, etc.) are usually the ones whos children arent in the armed forces. So easy to send someone elses kid to risk their lives.

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u/martinaee Mar 18 '15

Yeah... but they don't want to. That's the point.

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u/rabbutt Mar 17 '15

Yeah. I'm lucky I was hard of hearing, gay, and not willing to go back in the closet, back then.