[ContemptofCourt]

CM, do you know how many teens go off on these types of trips every year.....I would guess not thousands but tens-to-hundreds of thousands. I'm talking spring break, grad, etc. Heck, when I graduated from HS, we took a cruise to the Bahamas which was exclusively high school grads from around the country.

The point is that while Ms. Holloway's disapearance is tragic, it is a statistical anomoly....and at some point, these "kids" fly away from the coop. Indeed, I would guess that the avg age of our fighting foces in Iraq is not too far removed from Ms. Holloway's age.

[johnb838]

That's funny. I forgot, but I took a trip like that too when I was 14.

[CitizenM]

These trips have, yes I agree, been going on for quite a while. I remember my children wanting to go on them. However, it is not the trip (although I do not agree with going to a foreign country simply because of the possible legal complications as we are now witnessing), but it is the absence of good judgement on the part of the adults with which I find fault. My heart would be aching so badly had anything ever happened to a teen under my care while away from their parents - contract or not. I could not bear it.

I know most of these kids were probably going to go off to college, etc. I know all the arguments about possible danger at home. None of that excuses the fact that these kids should not have been allowed to go out at 1 A.M. with no chaperones, to a bar, and get drunk.

As for our troops - they are trained, armed, protected. They are not unaware of danger, nor are they running around in the middle of the night drinking. They are with others with whom they have a bond -- to make sure all return safely and foolishness is not unobserved and corrected.