Child Soldiers: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:g00childsoldiers.jpg|link=Mobile Suit Gundam 00|frame|''"We fight this battle not for ourselves, but for our children, and our children's children, which is why I'm forming a children's brigade."'' --[[Futurama|Zapp]] [[General Failure|Brannigan]]]]

 

 

 

In fiction, this also has the convenience of explaining why [[Person of Mass Destruction|Persons Of Mass Destruction]] are obeying their weaker bosses and not actually running things, or at least not demanding wages and better job conditions. It doesn't occur to them; and even if they do rebel, they don't know how to do it properly.

 

 

 

 

Contrast [[Falling Into the Cockpit]], which usually implies no former military experience. See [[Plucky Middie]] for the naval version. See also [[Raised by Orcs]] for cultures that use ''their enemies'' children this way.

 

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** This is apparently [[Truth in Television]], which is why many child soldiers are from the Middle East in anime. ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 00|Gundam 00]]'' also uses this and ''[[Black Lagoon]]'' made a reference to it.

*** Sagara had actually been a soldier ''before'' that. He was actually sent to kill a guerilla leader at age 8 after being trained as an assassin by the KGB, but failed and joined the arabic leader's troops. He was brought to Russia by Kallinin, {{spoiler|who legally adopted him when he and toddler-Sagara were the only survivors of a plane crash, and introduced him to military life. Kallinin later deserting the KGB also to join sides with Sousuke, further training him in the art of war at still tender ages.}}

** In the novels, it's mentioned that Gauron himself was one of these: he was fighting for the Khmer Rouge by at least age 12, and probably earlier.

** Sousuke's former comrade, Zaied is also an example, and unlike Sousuke, is played horribly straight, having grown up into an [[Empty Shell]] [[Sociopathic Soldier]], who seems to lack pretty much all social contact, drive and ambition. It makes him a dangerous antagonist and [[Evil Counterpart]] to Sousuke.

* ''[[Divergence Eve]]'' has Kotoko-01, though since she's an android it may or may not count.

** The pilots in ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam Wing|Gundam Wing]]'' were all 15 at the start of the series, but the most extreme case is Trowa, who (according to ''[[All There in the Manual|Episode Zero]]'') was picked up by mercenaries after spending the first few years of his life completely alone, and thus has been a soldier since literally before he was able to talk. The show's protagonist Heero has many similarities to Sousuke Sagara (mentioned above) such that many consider Sousuke to be an [[Expy]].

** And for Usso, it speaks of how children are forced to fight. While all teenagers in real life would want to pilot a giant robot and crush all the adults. Imagine if it was a tank, and you don't even got your driving license... real scary thought.

*** Indeed, a Zanscare pilot that Usso downs shoots himself when he sees how old Usso is, because he can't bear to live in a world where children so young are made into soldiers.

** Mangaka Masashi Kishimoto is queasy about actually killing off members of his young protagonist set outright (aside from [[Disney Death|feints]], [[Death by Flashback|flashbacks]], and [[Christmas Cake|characters over 25]]), but has no such qualms about having enemy shinobi bite the dust. Fair enough... [[Fridge Logic|up until you realize]] that all of Orochimaru's non-filler Quirky Miniboss Squads, minus Kabuto, are no older than the junior-high-aged protagonists when they die horribly.

** Some characters start even younger, as Kakashi graduated at the age of 5, became a Chunin at 6, and by 13, was a Jonin who would have died on several occasions if not for his teammate Rin's medical ninjutsu.

** The TSAB looks more like a police/firefighter force. The characters' job is to arrest bad guys, avoiding lethal force as much as possible, and to rescue people from disasters. Definitely a dangerous job, but far less scarring than a "job" where you have to kill or be killed. But even that is darker in SSX, where we're reminded that working in Disaster Relief means that when you fail, you see people die.

* Major Edward Elric from ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' earned his commission in [[The Empire|Amestris']] State Military at the tender age of twelve.

* Mana Tatsumiya in ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' is (arguably) 14/15 years old, but has been fighting in various trouble spots around the world since her childhood. Her old Pactio card actually shows her, around 10 years old, with [[Guns Akimbo|Desert Eagles Akimbo]].

** In fact, the entire class (including the teacher!) that wasn't left behind counts, save the [[Our Ghosts Are Different|ghost]] Sayo. Setsuna has been a bodyguard or training in Shinmeiryuu techniques since childhood.

** [[Quirky Miniboss Squad|Fate's haremettes]] also can be seen as this.

* Played straight and subverted by ''[[Zettai Karen Children]]'', where the psychic children are used more or less as soldiers, but the organization doing so still treats them like children and tries very hard to provide for a healthy upbringing for them.

* The Shinigami in ''[[Bleach]]'' have a few children in their ranks. [[Hot Librarian|Ise Nanao]] and [[Stepford Smiler|Ichimaru Gin]] joined as children. [[Adorably Precocious Child|Hitsugaya Toshiro]] is a child in the current timeline, ''and he's the 10th squad captain''.

** [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|But then again]]...

* In ''[[One Piece]]'', during [[Ax Crazy|Donquixote Doflamingo's]] speech about [[Might Makes Right|justice]] during the Marineford Arc, when he gets to his "Children who never knew peace" part, we see a couple of these.

* Yu Ominae from the anime/manga series ''[[Spriggan]]'', was "recruited" (read: kidnapped) into a secret U.S. government black ops unit called COSMOS sometime after his archaeologist parents were killed in Iran. Considering he's no older than 16-17 by present day in the series (he's a high school student), this means he was likely taken around the age of 10. COSMOS (Children of Soldier Machine Organic System) was filled out with children kidnapped by the CIA from the around world. They are brainwashed, have their names replaced by a number, and given extensive special forces training. To give some perspective as to the results of this training, Yuu, after freeing himself from COSMOS' brainwashing, is considered to be one of the deadliest special agents alive in the world of Spriggan.

* Most of the main cast in [[Kagerou Nostalgia]], with Kazuma Shudo, a 14-year old, PTSD-ing [[Hired Guns|mercenary]] being the straightest example.

* Some, if not all of the ''[[Spider Riders]]'' are ages twelve to thirteen. For pete's sake, Princess Sparkle is only eight!

* In ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'', [[The Ace|Mami Tomoe]] reassures two prospective recruits that, though being a magical girl is often dangerous, it is ultimately very rewarding. {{spoiler|She is very, very wrong.}}

 

** I'd call a sidekick to a [[Super Soldier]] fighting in actual warzones a child soldier even before we add the [[Cloak and Dagger]] elements to his character.

* Xavin the Super Skrull in training from ''[[Runaways]]'' thinks of herself like this, but based on the flashbacks to his training on her homeworld it seems like he has never really seen combat and only undergone Super Skrull basic training.

** In the ''Runaways''/''[[Young Avengers]]'' [[Civil War (Comic Book)|Civil War]] arc, Xavin tells a [[Mad Scientist]] that when he/she was five, he/she was forced to first watch his father slaughter a "screaming family" and then was made to spend three days with the bodies as a punishment for crying during it.

* Hell, ''any'' [[Kid Sidekick]] is arguably this.

* Hit Girl from ''[[Kick-Ass]]'' is a strange case, because not only is she aware of her status as this, but she's far more capable than the 16 year old title character. {{spoiler|After her father gets killed, Kick-Ass helps her track down her mother, and she goes back to a normal life like nothing bad ever happened.}}

** In [[Kick-Ass (film)|the movie]], {{spoiler|her mother is really dead, so she returns to a normal life - probably devoid of bullies, but that's a detail - with just Dave as a guardian.}}

** Metaphorically Marrow was also a child soldier. Being forced to kill fellow Morlocks in order to survive and being indoctrinated to hate normal humans for no apparent reason.

 

 

* In ''[[Exoria]]'', Hylian Joint Intelligence is revealed to have hijacked the Spencer Welfare Program, an initiative designed to raise and educate orphaned children so they can serve the government when then grow up. Joint Intelligence keeps tabs on the program to search for candidates for the intelligence agency, and provide them underage military training covertly. Agent Link became an exceedingly young agent of Joint Intelligence this way. On one hand, Link doesn't seem to be too badly off with this upbringing, but Princess Zelda clearly disapproves, and, given the story's narrative slant, it's too early to tell how this will come back to bite Link in the ass.

* In ''[[The Mad Scientist Wars]]'', Commander Primary Xerox, head of [[The Men in Black]]-style organization '''M''' is somewhere between the two types. {{spoiler|Up until the age of ten he was trained along with other children to be an assassin, and sent to kill Mad Scientists.}} On one hand, he has amazing reflexes and a great deal of weapon training, but on the other hand {{spoiler|The guilt of his only ''mostly'' repressed memories has haunted his adult life, and he's never really recovered from the emotional stress. And he has the ''body'' of a Jaded Vet to go along with his mentality.}}

* Brutally Deconstructed during the ''[[Tamers Forever Series]]''

 

 

* It was the plot of ''[[Toys (film)|Toys]]''. {{spoiler|What else was Leland going to do with the kids?}}

* Implied a bit in ''[[Transformers (film)|Transformers]]''. Between mannerisms and personality, Bumblebee seems to be in the Cybertronian analogue of his mid-teens, and the Twins give the distinct impression of being the equivalent of twelve. They are, of course, probably older than most human civilizations, but they're young for their species.

* The movie ''Blood Diamond'' depicts child soldiers in a real-life conflict.

* The leader of the drug dealers from ''[[Tropic Thunder]]'' is twelve years old.

* The film adaptation of ''[[Chronicles of Narnia|Voyage Of The Dawn Treader]]'' starts out with a teenage Edmund lying about his age to try and enlist to fight in [[World War II]]. Unfortunately, the recruiting officer can tell he's underage and turns him down. Apparently, Edmund's tried multiple times and is becoming increasingly frustrated.

 

 

* From ''[[Frasier]]'', on Frasier and Niles' Greek aunt Zora.

{{quote|'''Niles:''' Have you forgotten that when Hitler invaded Greece, she joined the partisans so she could strangle Nazis?

'''Frasier:''' I have never believed that. She would have been five at the time.

'''Niles:''' That's why the legend says they were strangled with jump ropes. }}

 

* The eponymous kid from the ''[[Ender's Game]]'' series.

** And, to an only slightly lesser extent, the majority of characters in that series (or at least the first book).

* ''[[The War Against the Chtorr]]''. With most of the world population killed off by alien plagues, anyone old enough to fight the alien invaders is conscripted into the military.

* In ''Century Rain'' by Alastair Reynolds, one of the two major human factions in the setting, the Polity, used genetically engineered, nanotechnology enhanced child-soldiers against the other major faction, the United States of Near Earth, in a war some time before the beginning of the novel. They later show up in the course of the novel, as part of a rogue Polity group which is attempting to destroy the book's [[MacGuffin]]. They are described as being particularly hard to fight because of human instincts and their own extreme skill and small size.

* In the [[Posleen War Series]] novel ''Yellow Eyes'' Panama is forced to recruit children as soldiers to defend itself from the Posleen. It avoids becoming a [[Moral Event Horizon]] because it is clearly portrayed as a desperation move against the Posleen, [[Horde of Alien Locusts|who would have killed and eaten the children anyway if they weren't stopped]]. Also, the children are rarely used as front-line soldiers, instead they are used primarily for supply and logistics work in order to free up adults to fight in the front lines.

* Most of [[Redwall]]'s main heroes are the rodentine equivalent of about twelve to fifteen years old.

* ''[[Bitter Seeds]]'' has a team of Nazi child psychic soldiers.

* The entire main cast of ''[[Animorphs]]''.

* Rana Sanga's son Rajiv in [[Belisarius Series]] was being groomed to be a quite formidable [[Warrior Prince]] while still a teenager. However his father certainly intended that he be allowed to grow up before seeing actual combat and he only participates in war in the series because of an attempt to murder his family while his father is away on campaign.

* In ''[[Who Fears Death]]'' this is part of Mwita's background.

 

*** As in so many other things, [[Space Wolves]] are the exception. They take in valorous young men on the brink of death, usually in their twenties (leading the population of their planet Fenris to see their order as a [[Warrior Heaven]] in itself, but that is neither here nor there). Although we're never given figures on the success rate, the [[Honor Before Reason|wisdom]] of this is uncertain; when Leman Russ was found by the Emperor, his [[Band of Brothers|associates]] all volunteered to become Space Marines, and over half died from implant rejection. On the other hand, few of them were young in any way, and several were downright [[Badass Grandpa|elderly]].

* The premise of [[Bliss Stage]] is that the only people left who can fight the [[Alien Invasion]] are teenagers.

* A number of races in Warhammer Fantasy do this as well. Dark Elves begin training the moment they are strong enough to pick up a sword or spear. All Bretonian knights start off as a Knight Errant. Once the young knights have proven their worth in the field of battle, they are knighted and receive a small plot of land to rule.

 

* [[Halo|Master Chief]] and his fellow [[Super Soldier|Spartans]] started their [[The Spartan Way|grueling military training]] at age six, and have been kicking [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|Covenant]] rear since they were fourteen. Their skills and reputation are such that the Covenant calls them "demons."

** ''Ghosts of Onyx'' goes even further, with the SPARTAN III program, which turned children into ''suicide'' super soldiers who went off to fight and die at the age of ''twelve''.

* What's a young girl in a pretty white dress doing as one of the top three generals in ''[[Chrono Cross]]''? At least you can say the other kids making up the party weren't inducted into the army, what with growing up in the streets as a thief, swinging an oar, fishing, or being abandoned in the woods at 3 with only an axe and [[Cute Bruiser|the highest strength score in the game]] to survive.

* Some of the backstory for the ''[[Crusader: No Remorse|Crusader]]'' games indicates the Silencer Corps (of whom the main character was a member) prospects are identified through mandatory testing on adolescents. It's also hinted that it's no so much physical prowess they're looking for as it is psychological suitability...

** And we have Raiden who became a child soldier in the Liberian Civil War thanks to Solidus, recieving the nicknames of "White Devil" and "Jack the Ripper". Having a combat rifle at age six, he became captain of a unit of child soldiers ("the Small Boy Unit") at age ten. Similarly, Solidus himself was also heavily implied to be in his teens when he participated in the war.

** [[Metal Gear Solid]], the novelization, the Official Missions Handbook, and [[Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker]] also heavily imply that Solid and Liquid Snake were raised within the military from a very young age, at least since two years of age, in fact.

* ''[[League of Legends]]'' has no real restrictions on membership beyond the ability to kick enormous amounts of ass, so you can have children fighting amongst adult archangels, insane wizard Yordles, and people who've been in the military for years.

** Annie, who is literally ''six years old'' and fights clutching her teddy bear in one hand... and occasionally turning it into an flaming giant to destroy her enemies

** Kog'Maw, who's still an infant, but because he's an infant [[Eldritch Abomination]] who destroys everything in his path, no one minds.

** While she's grown up now, Riven's backstory indicates that she was a fanatical child soldier for Noxus.

 

* The title character in ''[[Terinu]]'' was raised by [[Space Pirate]] Mavra Chan to be an assassin, starting at the tender age of nine. His best friend Matt was sold ''by his own father'' to Chan to serve as a cook's mate on the same ship at the age of eleven. It's a sufficiently [[Crapsack World]] that in Matt's case this was distinct improvement over his previous situation.

 

 

* [[Proud Warrior Race|Sirene]] from the [[Play-By-Post Games|forum RP]] ''[[Open Blue]]'' is a highly militarised country that drafts children as young as 12 for a four-year service, with the exception of children qualified for technical schooling instead. Not even royals are exempt.

* Zero Takaichi of [[Tasakeru]] joined with the Militia and became a samurai at age 13, as is the custom for males of his species.

 

 

* Occasionally implied in the [[Transformers]] metaseries with the younger-minded characters. Done outright in ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' with Sari {{spoiler|especially after she turns out to be a [[Robot Girl]]}} and is pushed into the front lines in season 3.

** The episode "Human Error" {{spoiler|(where the main 'bots are shown in analogous human bodies)}} shows that Bumblebee is the Cybertronian equivalent of [[Toy Ship|roughly her age]].

** When Kamino comes under attack, the clone cadets take up arms to defend their home. Thanks to their accelerated growth, they're about as half as young as they look.

* I pity the fools who forgot to mention ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]''.

* The plot of ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''? A group of teenagers take down the [[The Empire|Fire Nation]] army.

* Episode 8 of ''[[Sym-Bionic Titan]]'' had The Academy on Galaluna, a military training facility which starts training future soldiers as children. To be fair, however, it is partially Truth In Television: most of them are teenagers, and military schools do exist for such ages. However, they also showed a row of children who looked even shorter, and, presumably, younger than Lance and Arthur — who were already small and really young-looking to begin with.

'''[[Wonder Woman]]''': So he could turn out like you?

'''Batman''': So that he wouldn't. }}

 

** Then there's Pinocchio who had no brainwashing, and eagerly learned how to become an assassin at a young age.

* The children of ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' are early on said to have a [[Competence Zone]] of 14, but it seems instead to be a similar result from the [[Applied Phlebotinum]]. Milked for all the drama it can give.

* Guts from ''[[Berserk]]'' was trained as a mercenary by his adoptive father when he was just a little boy and had to participate in his share of horrific violence as a result. One of the most horrible things to happen to him back then was being sold by the adoptive father as a sex slave to a pederast soldier for three silver coins.

* ''[[Bokurano]]'' has a group of 12-13-year olds (the first episode states they've just finished grade school) protecting the whole world from being destroyed. Even if they ''were'' completely well-adjusted to begin with ([[Dysfunction Junction|and they're]] ''[[Dysfunction Junction|not]]'' -- [[Author Appeal|this is a Mohiro Kitoh work]]) the circumstances of the 'game' they've found themselves in makes their tenure as 'defenders of earth' more tragic than most other examples on this page combined.

* Chise from ''[[Saikano]]''/''She the ultimate weapon''. In high school (or was it Junior High?) but being forced to be in the military and even going as far as {{spoiler|turning into pretty much a machine with a [[Berserk Button]] that is automatically triggered by battle}}.

* Kirika and Chloe from [[Noir]], and to a lesser extent Mireille, actually belong to both types. Kirika was an active assassin from the time she was ''[[Tyke Bomb|five]]''.

* [[Mobile Suit Gundam 00|Setsuna F. Seiei]] (mentioned above) also falls into this category. He was forced to watch his fellow child soldiers die and {{spoiler|killed his parents at the bidding of his group's [[Complete Monster]] leader.}} Years later, he still dreams about dodging bullets and wishes he could go back in time and save his younger self.

* Kazuma Shudo of ''[[Kagerou Nostalgia]]'' is a teenage mercenary who's been in the business ever since demons killed his sister and his dreams of being a [[Kid Samurai]]. He's totally broken, burned out and sufferring from severe [[Shell Shocked Senior|shellshock]]. One could argue that Child [[Ninja]] Fuwa, [[The Hunter|demon-hunting]] [[Badass Preacher|initiate]] Shiranui, and [[Tyke Bomb]] Goki are also this.

 

 

* In ''[[Justice Society of America|The Last Days of the Justice Society]]'', [[The Flash]] is shot and killed by a child soldier during the fall of Berlin.

* Mariane Satrapi's ''[[Persepolis]]'' featured a portrayal of the real life Iranian unit of children, who were walked into the minefields to detonate them ahead of the troops.

* The Vertigo reboot of [[Unknown Soldier]] is set in Acholiland, the base of operations of the Lord's Resistance Army, one of the most infamous [[Real Life]] users of child soldiers. Therefore, they're all over the place.

* When the [[X-Men]] were up against Storm's uncle, a ruthless African dictator, he had a whole unit of child soldiers, trained to be extremely sadistic. Storm had no choice but to kill a squad before they could to the same to her.

 

 

* The ''[[Firefly]]'' fanfic ''[[Forward]]'' has a reveal later on that some of [[School for Scheming|the Academy's]] test subjects are pre-teens. It is implied that one of them managed to kill several security guards when a training exercise went out of control.

 

 

* ''[[Downfall (film)|Downfall]]'' features a girl of about 12 'manning' an 88mm gun at the Battle of Berlin. When everything appears hopeless, her not-much-older comrade shoots her at her own request, then kills himself.

* Sam Peckinpah's ''Cross of Iron'' features a Russian boy soldier who is captured by the German characters.

** He was later released by the protagonist, to promptly be shot by a passing Russian soldier. Cue [[Heroic BSOD|Protagonist BSOD]].

* In the 1959 German movie ''Die Brücke'' (''The Bridge''), a group of Hitler Youth tragically try to defend their hometown from American tanks.

** Even more tragic, the bridge had no strategic importance, their teacher had them send there in order to keep them away from actual fighting. Additional the bridge was meant to be destroyed anyway.

** Heavily subverted in the film ''Till the first blood'' where a war game in summer camp begins to resemble an actual war more and more.

* Another Russian film series ''The Uncatchable Avengers'' features four teenagers (3 boys and 1 girl) fighting in the Russian Civil War(1918-1924).

* In ''[[Doctor Zhivago (film)|Doctor Zhivago]],'' during the Russian Civil War, the Red Army unit in which Zhivago is serving as a medical officer comes under fire from a (presumably White) machine-gun nest in the distance. The Reds shoot all their attackers dead, then approach the nest and find that, while they are wearing some sort of uniform, they are only boys, except for one old man. One Red looks closer at a uniform and says, astonished, "St. Michael's Military School?!" To the dead old man: "You rotten bastard!"

* ''[[Lord of War]]'': West African dictator André Baptiste has a military unit composed entirely of child soldiers which he calls the "Kalashnikov Kids" and his "Boy Brigade".

* The whole Harry Potter series is about kids getting caught up in their elders' war and recruited/forced to fight in it in various capacities. This is an instance of "Precociously Talented Type" and "Just Plain Tragic Type" combined.

* In ''Taps'', cadets at a [[Military School]] find out that the [[Adults Are Useless|useless adults]] are planning to close the school and sell the land to condo developers. With the school's commander in the hospital, they decide that [[Saving the Orphanage|they will not allow this to happen]] and barricade themselves within its walls with weapons from the well-stocked armory. This leads to the inevitable standoff with the national guard.

 

* The midshipmen in ''[[Master and Commander]]'' books, tragically a case of [[Truth in Television]].

*** Mitigating this, as the aforementioned series does mention, midshipmen were frequently carried on the ship's books a few years before they were actually carried on the ''ship''.

**** If a boy's father had been in the navy, some sources say that the minimum age was NINE.

* ''[[Les Misérables]]'' features minor character Gavroche, a street-child who participates in the student uprising, collecting ammunition from the bodies of fallen enemy soldiers {{spoiler|and survives being shot once to throw his bag of bullets over to his friends before falling to another shot}}.

* The later ''[[Harry Potter]]'' books see several underage wizards/witches seeing real combat due to various circumstances, namely the rising stakes. The most tragic example is {{spoiler|Colin Creevey}}, who is killed in the book 7 finale ({{spoiler|he would have been sixteen or possibly even seventeen at this point, but his small stature would have certainly made him seem younger}}).

* Teenage witch ''Sylvia of Arc'' from Nick Perumov's "Swords' Guardian" series. Was "considered a veteran at the age of ten." She fills both variants (i.e. is both Precociously Talented AND Tragic) of this trope, though, as she is IMMENSELY talented and could take most adult opponents with ease... until she started to run into demigods, that is.

* Even [[Alice, Girl from the Future|Alisa Selezneva]], "Girl to whom nothing will happen" from books of Kir Bulychev, was drafted as a soldier once at age 12.

** She (actually the author, of course) also gives an explanation WHY this is common: "If a grown up soldier revolts, he can be hard to deal with. He may very well turn the weapons you give him at you. Kids usually can be controlled by means as simple as threatening to deny them sweets."

* The second book in ''[[The Dalemark Quartet]]'' by [[Diana Wynne Jones]], ''Drowned Ammet'', introduces Mitt, a boy whose family is forced off its farm and into the city slums because they can't pay the earl's rising taxes. Then Mitt's father joins a society of revolutionaries and dies, which prompts Mitt to join the society himself, and then he gets the brilliant idea to blow up the earl.....

* In ''Suicide Kings'' from the ''[[Wild Cards]]'' series Dr. Nshombo uses child Aces as soldiers. Since they have superpowers this would normally put them in the precocious category, except for how he gets them. He takes normal children in large numbers and exposes them to the wild card virus. This kills most of the people exposed to it. About nine percent suffer extreme but survivable mutations. And about one percent gain superpowers without being mutated, known as Aces. Aces or those with useful mutations are conscripted. The rest, including those who turn out to be [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?|"deuces"]] are shot.

* The [[Posleen War Series]] tends to have a lot of these. Given the Posleen kill counts though, the kids are probably better off than otherwise.

* There's a short story which details the journey of a group of children on the Children's Crusade. As history tells, it does not end well, which makes their optimism that God will favor their cause once they reach Jerusalem to be rather a [[Tear Jerker]]. Fortunately, the narrator had been a werewolf since birth (he joined the Crusade in the hopes of God freeing him from his curse) and the night they're delivered to Egypt as slaves happens to be just the same night as the full moon...

* Willie, husband of the narrator of ''Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All'', joined the Confederate army in the [[American Civil War]] at the age of 13. It messed him up - just how horribly is revealed gradually over the course of the book.

* A young Vlad Tepes in ''[[Count and Countess]]'' is held hostage by the Ottoman Empire and forced into the Janissaries.

* In ''[[Warrior Cats]]'', one of the laws in the warrior code is that kits must be six moons old (the feline equivalent of about age 10) to begin training, and even then they don't see battle until they're more experienced. This rule stemmed from too many kits being trained at too young an age; it took their mothers refusing to fight in a battle to make the Clan leaders see sense. This law has been broken once during the books: Brokenstar trained ShadowClan kits to fight when they were barely weaned from their mothers, and as a result many of the Clan's kits died in battle.

* In ''Chanda's Wars'' by Allan Stratton, Chanda's siblings are taken by a warlord in an [[Bulungi|unnamed Sub-Saharan African country]] to be soldiers.

 

* The series finale of ''[[JAG]]'' had one of the officers dealing with a marine who is actually only 16 years who lied about his age signing up. To resolve the situation, the lawyer talks the Marine Corps into making the kid an honorary Marine before he is sent home to his mother with a promise that they would be delighted to recruit him legally when the time is right.

** Famously, in ''Sometimes You Hear the Bullet'':

'''Hawkeye:''' Let's hope it's a long and healthy hate. }}

* If the ''[[School for Scheming]]'''s [[Mind Rape|plan]] had [[Super Soldier|worked]], [[Firefly the Series|River Tam]] would have become one of these.

* ''[[Band of Brothers]]'' touches on this a couple times:

** Pvt. Jackson, who died by his own grenade in episode 8, was noted to have lied about his age when he joined the army at 16.

** In episode 5, Winters is haunted by the memory of shooting a German soldier who looked no older than 18.

* Kira Nerys of [[Deep Space Nine]] joined [[La Résistance|the Bajoran resistance]] at the age of twelve or thirteen. While she was willing (indeed, eager) to join the fight against the Cardassians who were occupying her planet and her side was generally the "good guys", this show fully exploited [[War Is Hell]] and [[The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized]], meaning that much of what she saw and did allows her to qualify as this.

* [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|Buffy]] leads the potential slayers into what is essentially a hopeless war in season seven, with many or most of them being under 18. For that matter, though it was more of a lone warrior gig {{spoiler|prior to season seven}} any slayer would probably qualify, since 15-16 seems to be the usual age to be called, and 16 to 17 the usual age to be killed.

{{quote|'''Strax:''' It's all right. I've had a good life. I'm nearly twelve.}}

 

{{quote|Evacuees will be restricted to those below the age of seven (plus one parent/guardian) and those above the age of ninety. Regrettably, there are not enough places for everyone, so each person eligible for evacuation will be assigned a number. [...] If you are not eligible for evacuation you will be immediately assigned to a hive defence unit - details of where to report will follow this announcement.}}

 

* The Wole Soyinka play ''Travel Club and Boy Soldier'' is about a military coup in an unspecified third-world nation, and the "Commandant" who's leading the whole thing is, well, the titular boy soldier. He's a teenager when the takeover happens, but he's been in the army for years by that point.

* ''[[Les Misérables (theatre)|Les Misérables]]'' features Gavroche, who tags along with the student revolutionaries (who are themselves implied in several songs to be at ''most'' in their early 20s) and {{spoiler|manages to take 2 bullets while collecting ammunition for the students before he is fatally shot in the head}}.

 

 

* ''[[Suikoden II]]'' is the ur-example of this trope. The story begins two friends who, during military training in a youth brigade, are attacked by their own country's forces dressed up as a neighboring nation's units, just to justify going to war with that nation. Many child soliders such as Pohl are ven killed (in his case, run through by Luca Blight).

* In the ''[[Metal Gear]]'' series, this is the [[Backstory]] of aforementioned Frank Jaeger and {{spoiler|Raiden}}. It turned the former into a badass and the latter into a psychological wreck.

** Give Gray Fox some credit; he's a psychological wreck, too.

** The Beauty & Beast Corps that Snake fights in ''[[Metal Gear]] Solid 4'' are all child soldiers who were horribly traumatized in their childhood. For example, Laughing Octopus was forced to laugh while she killed people, despite the fact that she found it horrifying, and so she cackles like a hyena all through her boss battle. At the end, she confesses, "I'm not really laughing..."

* ''[[Drakengard]]'' features a few missions where the enemy soldiers are child conscripts. Naturally, Caim, being the murderous nutcase that he is, viciously slaughters them all, much to the dismay of his more level-headed comrades.

** Noteworthy in the game is a mission where most of the foes are the normal faceless adults you've been used to fighting throughout the game, except for a small squad of child conscripts. You can ignore them easily enough, but if you want one of the unlockable weapons during this mission, you have to hunt them down. And since getting all the endings in Drakengard requires every single weapon, you're pretty much forced to do this.

* [[Emotionless Girl]] Leona from ''[[The King of Fighters]]'' started this way, after {{spoiler|[[Self-Made Orphan|killing her own parents]] under Goenitz's [[More Than Mind Control]]}} and being adopted by [[Colonel Badass]] Heidern {{spoiler|who had lost his daughter and wife}}.

* ''[[Iji]]'' and her brother Dan are pressed into fighting an alien invasion because [[The Only One|just about everyone else is dead.]] Some of the logbooks imply that the Tasen draft soldiers as soon as they're old enough to hold a rifle, somewhat justified as {{spoiler|the Komato have hunted them to the brink of extinction.}}

** Iji is actually 20 years old, so she doesn't count. The diary writing alien soldier and her girlfriend are definite examples, though.

** It is arguable that ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' can be a deconstruction of this trope. The teenagers trained by Garden are quite effective in combat, but they still make very bad decisions due to their youth and inexperience. Squall's screwed up head is just one example of the underlying theme of "training children to fight from a very young age = bad."

* ''[[Suikoden V]]'' has [[Murder, Inc.|Nether Gate]]; among their many, many atrocities is how they raise children to become career assassins. The player meets several members; some managed to escape its influence and have spent years recovering. Others... haven't.

* In ''[[Brothers in Arms]]'': Hell's Highway it is implied that {{spoiler|Frankie}} is under 18. He dies.

** Some people did (and still do!) lie about their age in order to join the military.

* ''[[First Encounter Assault Recon|F.E.A.R.]]'' has [[Psychic Powers|psychic commmando]] Paxton Fettel, as well as the player character, the Point Man. Though grown by the events of the game, both were trained basically from birth. Fettel in particular killed people when he was only ten, {{spoiler|though not in combat, and it wasn't entirely his fault...}}

** The psychological and emotional ramifications are explored in third game. Essentially, they're both scared children running from something far more powerful then them and either becoming obsessed with that (or similar) power or lashing out mindlessly in fear.

 

 

* Cloud's mom, Ye Thuza, from ''[[Sandra and Woo]]'' was recently revealed to have been with Burmese rebels when she was only 16. While it hasn't been explored in much detail yet, it's certainly demonstrated a touch more seriously than the overall tone of the comic, [[Don't Explain the Joke|apart from being half of a punchline in which Ye Thuza remarks she's "always been a rebel" while comparing her life as an American housewife to her years in Burma]].

* [[Ruby's World]] uses this as the base of the conflict; the villains regularly use third world children as material for their cybernetic super-soldiers, and several of the young heroes have this blood-stained technology in their bodies.

 

 

{{quote|'''Katara:''' I haven't done this since I was a kid!

'''Aang:''' You are a kid! }}

 

 

* A celebrated moment of Mexican history eulogizes the last stand of the cadets who defended the Chapultepec castle against the U.S. Army and a storming part of U.S. Marines during the Mexican-American War. They are called "Los Niños Héroes" (The Child Heroes) making an allusion to their young age. They all existed and their names are real (despite many "revisionist" claims), however, one episode of high controversy is when one of the cadets, Juan Escutia or Juan de la Barrera (different cadets), threw himself to the abyss of the Grasshopper Hill rather than die at the hands of the enemy, while holding the Mexican Flag, which wrapped around his body during the fall. This, however is false. It may come from three episoes: one was when after the Battle of Molino del Rey, a soldier named Margarito Zuazo hid his batallion's flag wrapped around him below his uniform to avoid capture. The second one comes from Escutia's death: he was a sniper at the top of the castle, a bullet hit him and he fell to the abyss. Another one comes from a poem that said that another cadet, Agustín Melgar, "surrounded by enemies you shoot your weapon, and having no hope, rather than you surrendering, you wrap yourself in the flag and show your youthful bosom to the bullets of the invaders". These two made way for the popular myth that's still told in history classes.

** One of those cadets was 13 and another was 14, but the other four were 18, 19 and 20 years old.

*** Most of them forced into joining, anyone attempting to escape would be shot or hanged, though not before 1945.

*** On the other side, many children served in the [[wikipedia:Warsaw Uprising|Warsaw Uprising]], theoretically as auxiliaries but many did see direct combat.

* The "Lord's Resistance Army" in Uganda, controlled by wanted war criminal Joseph Kony are infamous for this. Along with complimentary acts heinous enough to be filed under [[And I Must Scream]]. The "Lord's Resistance Army" is one of the best examples of how truly horrific this can be.

** Around 60% of Uganda's population is below 18 years old, so, heartbreaking and terrible as it may be that a large proportion of the guerilla groups are child soldiers, it is not surprising.

** Go to the village, kill all the adults, kidnap and rape all the women (a special treat for the boys), brainwash all the kids so you have more troops to go to the next village.

** Thousands of children served in rebel militias in the Democratic Republic of Congo during the First (1996) and Second Congo War (1998). Trained to be cold-blooded killers by all sides.

* Many 'developed' countries have soldiers who are 16 or 17 years old.

** In Sweden, career NCOs (i.e. corporals and sergeants) used to enlist straight after leaving primary school (i.e. 9th grade) at age 16 or 17. (That practice has since then been abolished, because those chaps were too uneducated to deal with the modern military environment.)

** Under international law "child soldier" is strictly defined as any soldier under the age of 18. But since not all countries set the age of majority at 18, it is not always the case that a child soldier is considered a child in their own society or by themselves.

*** In 2000 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a protocol which was aimed at restricting the use of children in armed conflict. The Children in Armed Conflict Protocol set minimum ages for compulsory service, and was met with stiff opposition from the beginning. The minimum age was brought up to 18 from 15 and declared that no one under the age of 18 may be put in a combat situation. The United Kingdom (which maintains 16 as the minimum age for enlistment and 17 as the ''theoretical'' minimum age for front-line combat duty) is not a signatory to that protocol, though training is a long enough process that its spirit is obeyed in practice.

*** A (possibly apocryphal) tactic was for the boy to write the number 18 on a piece of paper, then put it in his shoe. When asked his age by the recruiting officer, he could honestly respond, "I'm over 18."

** Recent questions have been raised in the United States on how to deal with captured enemy soldiers who are under eighteen.

* ''A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier'' by Ishmael Beah is a chilling account written by a boy who was removed from the government army of Sierra Leone by a group from UNICEF.

* Underage enlistment was especially common in 19th century conflicts. Not only were there drummer boys, the communications troops of the age, commonly as young as twelve, 'powder monkeys' passed filled cartridges and shot during battle. Many officers were very young too. Midshipmen as young as 12 served in the navies during the Napoleonic era, while, on land equally youthful ensigns and cornets served respectively in the British Army's infantry and cavalry.

** Drummer Boys were technically non-combatants, but they were still in the middle of a war zone with the soldiers. Several were killed and mutilated by the Zulu at the Battle of Isahlwanda. It's said that that led to the elimination of underage 'soldiers' in the British Army.

** At least during WWII, there tended to be a blind eye turned if someone was slightly underage. The fact that the US was conscripting heavily combined with still decidedly non-standard record-keeping meant that if someone looked old enough, the recruiting office wasn't likely to look too hard to verify it.

** Iranian [http://www.tebyan.net/index.aspx?pid=52570 Hossein Fahmideh], only 13, is regarded as the first "suicide bomber" for throwing himself under an Iraqi tank during that war. He would be described as a national hero and ''inspiration for Iranian children''.

* In [[World War II]] the Polish boy and girl scouts formed part of [[La Résistance]] on their own volition. They held meetings underground ([[Those Wacky Nazis]] wished to convert Poles into a [[Slave Race]] so they couldn't be allowed to learn to read or write, remember an intellectual or artistic tradition, or have scouts) . They also did various things like [[Sacred Hospitality|helping refugees escape]] , And during the Warsaw revolt, when the mailmen were all fighting they took over the delivery. And often as well they carried messages to soldiers, crawling through sewers to deliver them. Like so much about Poland during [[World War II]], the scouts were tragic but [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|awesome]].

** The Armenian Boy Scouts in the city of Van in 1915, in what was then the Ottoman Empire, did many of the same things while their city was under siege by the Turkish army, and most of the men were either busy fighting or had already been deported and massacred.

* [[wikipedia:Lwow Eaglets|Lwow Eaglets]]. Most of them younger than 17, youngest fighter was 9 years old.Notable fighters were Jurek Bitschan - 14 year old who died protecting his post and Antoni Petrykiewicz - 13 year-old who died from fatal wounds after a battle.Post-mortem honoured with highest polish military decoration of courage Order Virtuti Militari (comparable to Medal of Honour)

* It is notable the prior to the 21st Century under age or child soldiers were very common.

** [[Values Dissonance|It had been acceptable up to a certain point]] to use very young volunteers or conscripts as long as there was a war emergency and manpower was short (explosive growth of world population became just after [[World War Two]]). The custom [[It Got Worse|backfired horribly]] when it became obvious that in some remote places of Africa or Southeast Asia, where education was poor from private to general officer, military discipline was even poorer and the youngsters grew into [[Rape, Pillage and Burn|little more than criminals and bandits]]. With [[Break the Cutie|no further posibility to integrate]] in a normal society.

* The average Khmer Rouge soldier was younger than 20, some as young as 10 or 12 years old. Under Pol Pot's reign the Khmer Rouge commited genocide that killed 1/4 of Cambodia's population.

* Ghenghis Khan, and other historic military figures, were child soldiers (by modern standards, child labor laws did not exsist for most part before Steam). Which was fairly normal during his time as killing was a job that some did better than others. Tragic in the sense that he graduated from child soldier to lead the famous Mongol Horde and kill (conservatively) several million people.

[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]

[[Category:Truth in Television]]