As a former active duty Marine officer, I served with men and women who did multiple deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq before being legally permitted to drink their first beer. I know that those who are under 21 aren’t necessarily deprived of the occasional cold one or cocktail, thanks to patriotic bartenders. Millions of these young service members’ underage civilian peers also have access to alcohol.

So why does America have a law that is widely ignored? Because we’re “safer.”

Yes, pegging the drinking age at 18 would likely result in more drunken-driving tragedies, but a certain amount of risk is involved in every attempt to impose legal limits on behavior. Lives would also be saved by raising the drinking age to 25 or 30, but we certainly don’t do that.

Young adults, either college students or those starting out in jobs, are learning to live on their own and make decisions for themselves. That is precisely the wrong time for them to receive a message that the law doesn’t matter.