The American Spectator

p> THREE LONGEST YEARS br> Re: Reid Collins’ Teacher’s Pets : /p> p>You know when that 20 year old gets home after spending 15 months wearing 40 pounds of body armor in 140 degree heat, I think it would be nice if he could buy himself a beer. br> — Jim Karr br> Blue Springs, Missouri /p> p> I am, alas, old enough to have gone to college when the drinking age (for beer and wine) was 18, but the voting age was still 21. And so we’d drink a good bit on the weekends, but took our studies seriously the rest of the time, and survived. Those who would have become problem drinkers at 21 simply became problem drinkers a few years earlier. By the time I completed my studies, the voting age had been dropped from 21 to 18, on the theory that if one was old enough to die for one’s country (we still had the draft), one ought to be able to cast a vote on the matter. I believed then, and believe now, that the same can be said for drinking a beer. br> — Pat Korten /p>