On vacation with my family this week in Florida, I am reminded of the never-ending debate about drinking and young people.

It's spring break, and this annual migration of teenagers and college students to warmer climes, mostly without a parent or teacher escort anywhere in sight, highlights the role alcohol plays in defining good times and bad on these trips.

At 2 a.m. in the hallways of a hotel near the Fort Myers airport, roving knots of young men and women with half-empty 12-packs of beer seem intent on making sure they aren't the only ones who stay awake all night. If being inconsiderately loud in the middle of the night wasn't bad behavior, they might get away with just hanging out. But several of them are wearing T-shirts that suggest what they're doing is probably illegal: "Colgate: Class of 2011."

Yet I am reminded that I was here when the war in Iraq began in 2003. Since then, hundreds of thousands of young women and men have answered the call of duty, and almost 3,000 have died, including too many who never lived to when they legally could have had a cold beer or sipped a glass of champagne to mark the occasion.

Dear Mr. Moyers: Help me understand the rationale around a drinking age that keeps my son from his right to drink. He is a 20-year-old U.S. Marine and returned wounded last fall from a tour in Iraq. Thank God his injuries were not serious. He has completely recovered.

But last month, he was out with some old buddies from high school. They got a little out of control because they had a little too much to drink. The cops were going to arrest him for disorderly conduct, but when they found out he was an Iraqi War veteran, he was cited for underage drinking only. It makes my blood boil. I don't get it. — Sanford D. in Cleveland

Dear Sanford: Raising the drinking age was never intended to deny young veterans like your son the choice to have a drink.

In fact, state legislatures were only focused on improving public safety, especially on the highways, where drunk driving kills more people every year than most wars.

There has been a dramatic drop in alcohol-related crashes since the minimum age was raised in the 1980s. Your son's military experience has forced him to make mature, responsible decisions. But most of his contemporaries aren't there yet. Alcohol impairs judgment and causes good people to do bad things. That's the point of the law. And like it or not, all of us must abide by it, even if there are cases where it seem unfair.

John McCardell wants to change that. The president emeritus of Middlebury College is traveling the country to convince policy-makers and the public that lowering the age to 18 will make it easier to control alcohol consumption, especially on college campuses. I met with McCardell last year when his road show stopped in Minnesota. And while I find his argument intriguing, I know from my own teenage experiences in the 1970s and my work today that alcohol and youth cause unintended consequences, not rewards.

Dear Mr. Moyers: My husband and I are recovering alcoholics. A few years ago, we hosted our son's graduation party. Alcohol was allowed. Our rationale: We felt safer allowing them to drink at our house than being out on the road at someone else's house. But when the party ended, two of the young men left drunk. Their car hit a tree only three blocks from our house. One died, the other was badly injured.

We were convicted of serving alcohol to minors, and we were sued by the boys' families. What a paradox! Trying to do what's right, we did so wrong. With graduation time around the corner again, we can only pray others learn from our self-made tragedy. Alcohol impairs judgment ... ours, and the people who use it. — Debbie B. in West Saint Paul, Minn.

William C. Moyers is the vice president of external affairs for the Hazelden Foundation and the author of "Broken," a best-selling memoir. The paperback edition was released in August 2007. Please send your questions to William Moyers at William@williammoyers.com. To find out more about William Moyers and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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