Why Don’t America’s Young People Want to Join the Military?

If we don’t figure out why soon, it will become a national security crisis.

Movies have always had an unhealthy influence on me. I came of age in Ronald Reagan’s neon-tinted 1980s, complete with big hair and big action heroes. My role models were people like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando, Sylvester Stallone in Rambo, and Carl Weathers in Predator.

Even James Cameron’s Colonial Marines from 1986’s Aliens made militarism cool well before the word “tacticool” (a portmanteau of tactical and cool) was…