Ted Nugent, the gun and hunting apostle, said he deliberately failed his draft physical in 1969 (during the Vietnam war) by urinating and defecating in his pants, a story he later recanted. Other young American men fled to Canada to avoid the draft and some went the "Klinger" route seen in M*A*S*H episodes.
With war back in the news and Germany contemplating a new draft, are today's young people combat ready if, God forbid, they are needed or if the draft returns? At least a third of young people today are too fat to join the military says the CDC. Legions of others, in addition to their obesity, have "neurodivergence," depression, hypomania, bipolar disorder, ADHD, PTSD, OCD, mood disorders, anxiety disorders and of course gender dysphoria. More than five years ago, the New York Times observed that throngs of young people were seeking "accommodations" at work for their anxiety, PTSD, depression and other mental conditions. If they feel "unsafe" in their classrooms and living with their Mom, as many do--how would they feel on the battlefield?
Everyone is Mentally Ill
It's not their fault. To sell drugs, drugmakers floated the factoid more than ten years ago that one in four Americans is "mentally ill" and mass media, mainstream medicine and government agencies have picked up the lucrative cudgel. Health "practices" now exist online and in strip malls for no other purpose than to dispense psych drugs while a bad day or mood or job are elevated to "mental illness." Pharma front groups do the heavy lifting.
For example, an insidious, campus-based group called "Active Minds" promotes mental disability as a desirable and appealing identity for young people growing up with "This Is What Mental Illness Looks Like" posters and slick ad campaigns.
Active Minds calls itself an authorized campus student group but when a reporter went to the room in the student union building at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where the organization was supposed to be headquartered a few years ago, they were not there--nor had a desk clerk ever heard of them.
In the past, Active Minds listed Eli Lilly, one of the top makers of psychiatric drugs, as a donor. Today almost all "mental health" groups--Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, Child Mind Institute, National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Mental Health America--remove Pharma financial fingerprints by laundering them through family "foundations." Those are pretty rich families.
Helicopter Parents Are Also Culpable
Parents who indulge their children's every quirk, whim and tantrum, never saying "no," also helped to create today's victim generation as did helicopter schools and growing up with climate change, school shootings and sedentary, isolation from pandemic shutdowns.
Still, if Big Pharma's intent through direct drug advertising selling mental illness was to create emotional hemophiliacs, it worked. And if Big Food's intent was to create obese customers to hand off to Ozempic manufacturers, it also worked.
Will Uncle Sam Call?
With armed conflicts returning, the health of the US military and US young people will soon be in the news. It might be bad news. All hope that peace will prevail but some doubt the ability of members of the physically and mentally challenged Gen Z to step up if the country needs them and peace does not prevail.
(Article changed on Jun 26, 2025 at 1:27 PM EDT)
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