The following is adapted from a lecture delivered on March 9, 2005, on the Hillsdale College campus, during a five-day seminar on the topic "War on Film" sponsored by the Center for Constructive Alternatives.

On my radio show today, I addressed the topic of military "counter-recruiters." You know what military recruiters are -- the people who go to high schools and colleges and tell young people about their opportunities to serve their country in the military. Well, now there are also "counter-recruiters" who go to these schools and tell young people why they shouldn't serve their country in the military. I had one of them on my show today and put one of your Hillsdale freshmen on with him, and she asked him the crucial question he couldn't answer intelligently: "What would the world be like without the American military?" He said that the world would be a "beautiful place." But of course this would only be true if a world enslaved under Nazism or communismor Islamo-fascism could be called beautiful. Without the U.S. military in the last century, it would be one of these.

These "counter-recruiters," by the way, have received such strong support from teachers unions in the Los Angeles Unified School District that it has been mandated that they be given equal access with military recruiters in Los Angeles high schools. How have we come to such a pass? One of the important underlying factors, it seems to me, is that the popular culture has changed fundamentally in the way that it portrays the military and its mission.