US Army’s image of power and flag-waving rings false to Gen Z weary of gun violence − and long-term recruitment numbers show it

And as a scholar of terrorism and targeted violence, I believe a close reading of available data on military recruitment suggests U.S. gun violence may be largely to blame for the lack of interest in joining the military…. Very rarely are introspective questions publicly debated today about the objective attractiveness of military service or the appetite for violence among young people. The problem, I believe, is not that young people are insufficiently patriotic – it’s that they have already been fighting a war, daily, for their entire lives.