Coming of age in Britain may be pushed upwards when it comes to such newfangled horrors as alcohol and tobacco (“You’ll Be a Man, My Son,” March 8, 2008), but there is one domain you fail to mention where it has been stuck at sixteen for ages: military service. Britain is the only country in Europe that still recruits sixteen-year-olds, and it routinely sends soldiers no older than seventeen into combat. A great pity these young men of valor will no longer be able to smoke or drink at ease before or after battle until the ripe age of eighteen.