There is always a day in life one looks forward to. For me it was not necessarily the day I turned 16 (nor, as I described last month, the day I turned 60). It wasn’t the day I first went to high school nor to university nor even to my first paying job. Those dates were exciting, all right, but the day I truly savoured was the day I first became eligible to vote – July 12, 1970. Problem was, just 16 days before I turned 21 – June 26, 1970 – Canada lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.
The federal government had taken the thrill out of becoming legal.
It wasn’t the end of the world, however, because eventually I had the chance to exercise my franchise in a federal election that brought in a minority Parliament. Later, I voted in a provincial election in which my chosen candidate unseated a cabinet minister. And because of my lifetime fascination for politics, I’ve had ample opportunity to cover elections from the municipal through to the federal level. The fact remains, however, somebody else had decided whether I was old enough to make an informed decision.
All this came to mind, this week, as I read about Laura Dekker. She’s the Dutch teenager who had planned to set sail last Tuesday aboard her 8.3-metre yacht, Guppy. In so doing, she hoped to become the youngest sailor to circumnavigate the globe. As it turned out, Laura couldn’t launch because a court in Utrecht, Holland, considers her underage. But what’s underage?
If authorities consider her too young to understand things nautical, that doesn’t wash; her mother apparently gave birth to her on board the family’s New Zealand-based boat and she pretty much lived at sea through her formative years. If the Dutch court doesn’t think she has the capacity to handle a yacht or make nautical decisions capably, that’s perhaps short-sighted too; she’s been sailing solo since she was six years old. And I realize that in a time when hurricanes and pirates seem more violent than ever, it may be folly to send a 13-year-old to sea.
My point, however, is that the world has always underestimated the young.
Need I remind you that 70 years ago this very week, a generation of teenagers and slightly older youth – with a great deal less education and worldliness than today’s young people – went to war against worldwide fascism. And won. No, they weren’t 13. But they, perhaps like Laura Dekker, had maturity and a sense of responsibility that other youth don’t.
A case in point is my veteran friend, Lorne Empey, from Kingston. When the Second World War broke out in 1939, one of Lorne’s brothers joined the air force, another enlisted in the army and his sister became an army nurse. His father moved from the family farm in Saskatchewan to B.C. to build corvettes. That left him – at the age of 17 – to run the farm by himself. When the navy finally accepted his underage enlistment, he became a stoker aboard a minesweeper and survived D-Day and the Battle of the Atlantic.
I have one last underage enlistment story that further illustrates the world’s underestimation of that remarkable generation.
The story came from a conversation I had with former Canadian air force pilot (now retired General) Richard Rohmer, who flew Mustang fighter aircraft during the Second World War. In particular, I recall Rohmer’s description of an inspection of his air force station in England by U.S. Army general George S. Patton. Rohmer vividly remembered that May 1944 morning when “Old Blood and Guts” Patton jumped from his jeep to review a long line of Mustangs and their pilots. Apparently, Patton spoke to no one, until he stopped in front of the boyish-looking Rohmer,
“Boy,” Patton demanded, “how old are you?”
“I’m twenty, sir,” Rohmer replied proudly.
The general pointed up at the nose of the Mustang towering over Rohmer’s youthful frame.
“Do you fly that goddamn airplane?”
“Yes, sir.”
Patton just shook his head and blurted out, “Son of a bitch!”
The judgment of Laura Dekker’s capability does not involve life and death decision-making the way fighting a wartime enemy did between 1939 and 1945. But it may well require a maturity some say she cannot possibly acquire until she’s older. Go tell 17-year-old Briton, Mike Perham, who just completed the same circumnavigation, or 16-year-old Australian Jessica Watson, who hopes to set sail on the same journey in a few weeks.
By the way, when it comes to maturity and the right to vote, if the current world trend comes to Canada, my granddaughter may have the right to vote when she’s 16.
