Quote Originally Posted by Archangel
It was part of the jingoistic war promotion at the time and they would get the training and do some of the support roles in a more comfortable setting than the grownups. When they were old enough, they would be more than ready.
(I don't know enough US military, would that be like the ROTC?)
Not really. ROTC, or Reserve Officer Training Corps, is the military's program for sending officers to college campuses to train students in the military in the hopes that they will join the military as officers after graduation.

I know that Army ROTC Cadets have to contract with the Army after their second year of training in most cases. I'm not sure what NROTC and AFROTC do.

The biggest differences, it seems, are 1) these aren't teenagers in ROTC, they're young adults; 2) they become officers, not enlisted folks doing support roles; and 3) the ROTC Cadets aren't actually IN the Army proper until they graduate - instead they're considered reservists in training.