U.S. troops face Afghan enemy too young to kill

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History shows that fighting children is far from a modern phenomena, there are just more kids and better communication. Nor are or were they all in Africa or 'third world' nations. The third pic is Polish, WW II, the second Russian, the White Army. Note the webbing on the WW I trench cleaning kid in the first one...

My point was not that there have never been child soldiers, only that a malnourished 14-year-old can handle the recoil of a bullet hose like an AK (and with eight moving part on some models and not real picky about maintenance in the field) far better than from a western rifle where aim and upkeep counts, let alone the kick from a WWI Lee-Enfield or a similar battle rifle. I fired the latter in the Arctic when I was on presence patrols with the Canadian Rangers (they still use our WWI stock from stores because unlike plastic guns they don't shatter when you drop them at 50C below), and the average child soldier would get about one shot in his active military career before seeking treatment for a broken collarbone and a dislocated shoulder, maybe a broken jaw too.