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I'm not sure about the gp comments specific case, but in many states in the US age of consent is actually much more nuanced than that. For example, in a number of states the age of consent for a female is 17 if their partner is no more than 10 years older than them at the time.

With parental consent, you can marry at much younger than 17 in most states.

Curious - do you need parental consent to enlist?

Only if you're 17, according to the person I was responding to.

Clarification about the Army taking in 17 year olds. They aren't allowed to be deployed, since the UN takes a very dim view of child soldiers.

The UK had a problem a few years ago when they accidentally deployed some 17 year olds to Iraq.