H.L. Mencken on war and the choice before young men

The choice before the average youngster, when war breaks out, is not between enlisting in the army and staying home to become President of the United States, or going into the movies at $10,000 a week, or marrying a girl with four or five doting stepfathers, each worth $100,000,000.  It is between enlisting in the army and taking a job in a filling station, or following the plow, or adding up long rows of dull figures; or sitting day after day in an unventilated classroom while half-dead pedagogues try to teach him things that don't interest him.

War, to this typical, this normal young fellow, is a colossal release.  The problem of making a living in a stupid and unappreciative world departs from his shoulders.  He ceases to be a nonentity and becomes a public figure, cheered by his relatives, his friends and the populace in general.  There is someone to feed him when mealtime rolls round, someone to cloth him, and someone to tell him what to do.  He has a gun in his hands and feels like a man.  His country needs him, and tells him so with many a slap on the back, though in a little while it may forget him.  No more lordly life is imaginable.  It combines all of the advantages of a sure income, good and racy company, and a job full of thrills.  The soldier stands proudly above all the ordinary laws.  Even the laws of economics are repealed for him.

~ H.L. Mencken, "Peace on Earth - Why We Have Wars," 1936