Okay, not exactly. There’s a lot of talk about countries that aren’t America recently, what with everything going on in Congress and overseas. Our lawmakers in the Capitol recently voted to automatically register every American man aged 18-26 for the draft. Amidst this outcry about war and conflict, we hear a common refrain: Americans don’t want to send their sons to die in a foreign country, be it Ukraine or Israel or Papua New Guinea.

That’s fair. It’s the right way to view the world. Our kids are our future, and we shouldn’t be sending them to endless fights in countries most people couldn’t find on a map. But, hear me out on this – couldn’t a lot of our young “men” use some time in the military?

Part of the crisis of masculinity in America is rooted in the crisis of adolescence. Extended adolescence, to be more precise. This country’s 20-somethings are living with their parents, going through extra schooling rather than starting a career, and failing to pursue romantic relationships and family-building at a rate we’ve never seen before in history. 

As Dean Wormer told Flounder in Animal House, “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.”