[the_lonely_road]

Here is a good historical reference from a western viewpoint.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_children_in_the_m...

I am less familiar with other regions of the world but understand it to be common place in some of them to this day.

[flashback2199]

The repeated use of the phrase that children were "used by all sides" is concerning because there were many countries that used no children except those that got in by pretending to be older.