Jack Coughlin, co-author of Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper, told the Dallas Morning News in 2005 that the Aspiring Sniper is “usually the country kid, the kid who grew up in the hills of Tennessee or Texas or something, who grew up with a love for hunting.” For sure, hunting would help. But in the California poll conducted by Bendixen, all of the Aspiring Snipers were urban blacks and Latinos. This is a whole new category of Urban Sharpshooters. (Although one thing hasn’t changed—all the aspiring snipers were boys.)

  And why the sudden interest? Part of it, no doubt, is an increasing respect for the military and law enforcement in America. Following a low point during and after the Vietnam War, Americans have come to regard the armed forces as one of our most trusted and respected institutions. In March 2007, even as barely 4 in 10 Americans thought sending troops to Iraq was the right decision, a whopping 84 percent had a favorable view of the soldiers fighting there (a sea change from the way Americans regarded soldiers in another unpopular war, Vietnam).

  Viewed in light of this new patriotism, the aspiration to become a sniper can be quite patriotic. And not just loyal—but also the few, the cool, and the reserved. To become a sniper, an infantry soldier has to be not just courageous, but also patient, self-controlled, and smart enough to master complex mathematical formulas like how distance or wind might affect the path of the bullet. Snipers are the elite of the very well regarded.

  But this is quite a change in the role that Americans generally think of themselves playing in war—whether you were John McCain or John F. Kennedy, fighting was about being on the front lines, and exhibiting bravery right in the face of the enemy whom you could see and who could see you. Today, there is more of a questioning about being a front-line soldier, when you can do more damage to the enemy and be safer behind the scenes.

  General George S. Patton was so concerned about his men being gung ho on the front lines that he admonished them that no soldier ever won a war by dying for his country; he won it by making the other side’s soldiers die for their country. In a sense, the sniper movement represents an acceptance of that philosophy, as we now attempt to fight wars with fewer casualties and fewer risks to soldiers than in the past, when killing was done on a massive scale. And it represents a change in the definition of bravery. People have always felt a little uneasy about snipers—were they fair? Now, they are seen by this generation as not only fair, but smart, efficient, and desirable as a career aspiration.

  This is also the generation that was raised on a lot of shooter video games. From World of Warcraft to Sniper Elite to the U.S. Army’s own America’s Army, kids today are comfortable stalking the enemy and taking him out, at least on screen. These games may be responsible for the renewed interest in joining the military, and the Army is aware of it—these games may serve as a kind of early training ground, and even an SAT of sorts, for future soldiers in a modern army.

  Finally, the statistically significant appearance of Aspiring Snipers says something about the post-9/11 culture in America. More so than in decades, young people today are unabashed in wanting to take down Bad Guys. Before 9/11, a lot of people in this country would have called that kind of attitude “primitive,” or “simplistic,” or at least “insensitive.” But since September 11, a growing number of us find the idea of skilled, unflagging marksmen on our side very reassuring. Police, firefighters, and other first responders are now our heroes in ways they haven’t been for decades. What’s 1.3 shots from an undisclosed location, and a villain on the ground, compared to a now safe subway or building or city full of Americans? Small price to pay.

  And if you think about it, the “human hunt” has actually been just below the surface of our culture for some time. Richard Connell’s short story “The Most Dangerous Game,” in which a big-game hunter goes after human prey, has been widely assigned to American middle schoolers for generations. And dozens of movies and TV shows, from James Bond’s Octopussy to Gilligan’s Island to The Simpsons to Xena the Warrior Princess, have featured literal man-hunting in some way or another.

  So whether it strikes you as off-putting or heroic, sniping is a mainstream business. Dozens of gun companies and makers of night vision equipment flock to sponsor annual “Sniper Weeks,” multiday conferences at which military and law enforcement personnel from around the world gather for lectures, presentations, trainings, and competitions. And now the U.S. military is actively recruiting and training these fighters for warfare of the future.

  So the 1 percent that affirmatively wants to be snipers could change the way we run wars and change the kind of army we have. It is also a symbol of the way people would like to strike in this country—stealth is in, openness is out.

  Ask anyone in politics and they will agree—they face “snipers” every day who are trying to find one flinch, one out-of-place word to put on Drudge and YouTube. Deep Throat brought down an administration. There has never been so much political criticism leveled so anonymously as there is today, and for that reason alone, perhaps it is not surprising that so many young people admire snipers—whether on the Internet, in politics, or in the police or military.

  PART VIII

  Food, Drink, and Diet

  Vegan Children

  In the old days, the classic American family dinner was meat and potatoes. Mom cooked. Dad praised, and had seconds. Kids cleaned their plates or could have no dessert. Fido got the scraps.

  These days, Dad might have cooked, or maybe Mom ordered out. The kids may have barely stopped IMing to come to the table. Maybe Fido’s wearing a bib and sitting on a dining room chair. But of all the changes in the American dinner table since the 1950s, the starkest one of all may be that what’s on the kids’ plates is meatless.

  About 1.5 million children in the U.S. between the ages of 8 and 18 are vegetarians, up from virtually zero fifty years ago. That’s a million and a half kids who pass over all meat, chicken, and fish. Nearly 3 million more pass up just meat, and another 3 million pass up just chicken. Then there are also a smattering of pescans (fish only), and vegans, who turn away all foods derived from animals including eggs, milk, cheese, and sometimes honey. Many of them won’t even wear leather.

  Some of those kids are vegetarian at the encouragement of their vegetarian parents—but more and more, young people are rejecting fleshy food on their own. Especially girls. A sizable 11 percent of girls aged 13–15 say they don’t eat meat. While Veggie Kids are fairly evenly distributed around the country, the Midwest slightly edges out the rest of the country at 8 percent—which has got to be disappointing to those meatpacking industry hubs of Chicago, Kansas City, and Fort Worth.

  Why the veggie craze? Wasn’t it spinach that got all the bad press in 2006?

  Part of the reason for the rise in Vegetarian Children is the rise of vegetarianism generally, and the growing availability of meatless alternatives, not to mention increasing social acceptance. There are now something like 11 million vegetarians in the U.S.—one-third to one-half of whom are vegans, which is up from fewer than 5 percent in the early 1990s. Even Burger King, of all places, offers a veggie patty. So these days, Veggie Kids can follow their impulses more easily than youth of prior generations.

  Another factor in the rise of Vegetarian Children is the rise of parental permissiveness in general—and the premium on individuality, at every age, that permeates practically every trend in this book. A child in the 1950s who told his parents he didn’t want to eat meat was probably lectured on nutrition, and conformity, and then threatened with no dinner at all. These days, he will be celebrated for his independence and probably his sensitivity to animals as well. Indeed, the fact that children increasingly go vegetarian of their own accord probably has less to do with practicality, or even parental tolerance, than it does the remarkably steady stream of information that kids today receive regarding the environment. Sure, we’ve had Earth Day since 1970, and every neighborhood I’ve ever lived in has periodic Clean Up The Park days. But my 4-year-old comes home from preschool singing “We Recycle, We Recycle” to the tune of “Frère Jacques.” She is growing up with a whole new sense of what is politically correct—and kids can have some of the loudest and most uninhibited voices around the household. I am not a smoker, but anyone who is gets an earful from their children. I better darn well not put tin cans or newspapers in the regular trash, or I will get looks. And the meat industry is not faring too well in school, either. Fishing, hunting, and chicken-farming are not some of the most favored activities in school.

  In fact, if you think about it, what’s really remarkable is not so much that more and more kids are becoming vegan and vegetarian—but that kids today eat as many animals as they do. Have you spent any time lately reading children’s books? There is barely a human being in them, until you get to at least Tween Lit. And I’m not just talking about The Three Bears and The Three Little Pigs, although those are good places to start. From the bears, cats, and worms in Richard Scarry’s books to Curious George the monkey to the pig family in Olivia, there is practically no object of kids’ love that isn’t an animal. And TV and movies are no better. From 2006’s Wonder Pets on Nick Jr. to that year’s hit movie Happy Feet (with the singing penguins), how is it, frankly, that children are ever persuaded—even by the most nutrition-conscious parents—to let animals pass their lips?

  Alas, increasingly, they’re not. And nutrition experts increasingly say that a vegetarian diet can be just as good for kids, if not better. So schools, camps, families, and every type of restaurant will be getting ready to provide vegetarian options, and the quality and variety will expand dramatically. Salads have become the fastest-growing fast foods. Don’t be surprised if the next fast food events are tofu-based. And maybe some tempura broccoli, or Cajun cauliflower. The industry has done a great deal with different forms of chicken, but they have yet to really run through what can be done with zucchini fries. Aside from the salads, the industry appears stuck in the meat and potatoes syndrome, believing that vegetables are something that kids will eat only under extreme duress. They are missing the trend—a lot of kids now genuinely like vegetable-based foods.

  The meat industry is so concerned about what is happening that, in 2003, it launched a counteroffensive. Targeting those teenage girls who have been driving the trend, the Natural Beef Council launched a carefully tailored pro-meat education campaign, with the basic underlying message, “Real Girls Eat Beef.” If the Veggie Child trend is sustained through adulthood, the industry’s future could be at risk.

  It could mean a healthier America, too. Vegetarian men have been shown to have a 37 percent lower risk of heart disease than nonvegetarian men—and vegetarians of both genders are half as likely to develop dementia—even when other differences in lifestyle are controlled for.

  Of course, vegetables can be dangerous, too, as we saw in the Taco Bell debacle of 2006. Since there is no “kill point” in vegetable preparation—unlike in meat preparation—producers, parents, and the Vegan Children alike have to stay vigilant, even in their healthier lifestyles. So far there has been little appetite for food irradiation, even though it is the sure way to extend shelf life and eliminate the potential for disease from veggies. But faced with billions of new portions of vegetables, the industry might turn to irradiation as the only way to serve spinach and sleep at night.

  The battle for the stomachs of our children will be a hard-fought one. The ranchers and the farmers are going to hang in there. And the vegetarian toddlers may well have a counterreaction as teenagers, believing that they have been repressed from enjoying meat, and switch back in record numbers. But more likely, this trend will continue, and more kids, especially girls, will reject the carnivore culture and combine a desire for dieting with new demands for designer veggies. Given, in addition, the move to ethanol and growing demand for corn and cellulose, don’t be surprised if soybean futures turn out to be a great investment in the coming years.

  A Disproportionate Burden

  Everyone knows America is getting fatter. In the early 1960s, the average man weighed 166 pounds, and the average woman weighed 140. Now the average man weighs 191 pounds, and the average woman weighs just about what the average man used to weigh—164.

  In the last two decades, the number of Americans who are considered “obese”—essentially thirty or more pounds overweight—has doubled. Perhaps more tellingly, the number of people who are considered “morbidly obese”—100 or more pounds overweight—has quadrupled. Today in America, there are estimated to be 9 million morbidly obese people. That’s more than twice the number of Americans who suffer from Alzheimer’s. It’s more than the population of North Carolina or New Jersey. It’s a staggering burden to carry.

  Of course, we’ve all heard how our sagging bellies are changing American life. The health care industry has had to make bigger ambulances, larger wheelchairs, wider CAT scan machines, and longer needles. Public transportation has had to adjust, with the Chicago Transit Authority officially widening its bus seats, and airlines having to charge some people for two seats. Commercial innovations abound, like carmakers who are experimenting with swivel seats that make it easier for obese people to get in and out—and caskets that are two-thirds wider.

  To be sure, some industries are having a field day. While some stores for petite women are trying to close, Lane Bryant, a leading maker of “fashionable plus-size clothing,” is opening hundreds of new ones. The food industry is thriving, as are fast food chains in particular. So, to a lesser degree, is the weight-loss industry. (Although it’s not clear that each of these industries has completely done its homework. Alabama, one of the fattest states in the nation, has over 100 KFCs, but only one Jenny Craig. Kentucky—fittingly—also has over 100 KFCs, but only four Jenny Craigs. Do they know something we don’t, or are they not paying attention?)

  Even public policy has gotten into obesity—as it should, since our extra weight is costing about $120 billion per year. The Federal Aviation Administration recently added ten pounds to the average weight per passenger in calculating plane cargo loads. Medicare announced it would cover obesity as a disease, which means that more and more weight-loss surgeries may get covered. In 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration launched an “Action Plan to Confront the Nation’s Obesity Problem,” vowing to step up calorie counts on food labels, nutritional information in restaurants, and better obesity drugs.

  But for all this generalized attention, no one seems to be truly focused on the fact that morbid obesity is not evenly distributed, demographically speaking. While we’re all generally getting fatter, the real burden of morbid obesity is falling disproportionately on one group of Americans: black women. According to a 2002 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), women in general are about twice as likely as men to be morbidly obese, but a sobering 1 in 6 black women is that overweight—almost more than three times the prevalence rate for any other subgroup of women or men. In fact, despite all the talk about rising obesity, the U.S. population overall is only now experiencing the obesity rates that black women experienced thirty years ago, and black women’s rates in that time have nearly doubled.

  Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2006

  If you think about it, you’ve seen this at play in pop culture. Oprah Winfrey, the most popular black woman in America, regularly and publicly discusses her challenges with weight loss. (Does Ellen, or Katie?) One of the hottest dance bands of the 1980s was Two Tons of Fun—two large black women whose number one hit “It’s Raining Men” has been remade successfully again and again for two decades. And men, apparently, just can’t get enough. Eddie Murphy has practically made a career out of playing big black women—from the Nutty Professor films to his 2007 Norbit, Murphy has based entire plotlines on little more than the apparent hilarity of the fact that such enormous women (played by himself, a skinny guy) exist. Martin Lawrence did something similar in Big Momma’s House, and Big Momma’s House 2. Even Tyler Perry, with his 2005 Diary of a Mad Black Woman and 2006 Madea’s Family Reunion, made more serious films, but still got a lot of mileage out of dressing in drag as plus-sized Aunt Madea.

  But in real life, here’s what that disproportionate burden means. There are a little over 18 million black women in America. If 1 in 6 is morbidly obese, that’s just over 3 million black women carrying an extra 100 pounds or more. According to a 2006 JAMA study, morbidly obese people tend to be concentrated in the 50–59 age group, which means the heaviest black women are in their working and grandmothering prime. And here’s the worst part. Also according to the JAMA study, which tracked its subjects for seven years, middle-aged, morbidly obese women had almost double the chance of dying during the study than women of normal weight. That puts middle-aged black women at perhaps one of the highest mortality risks in the nation.

  Can you appreciate the enormity of prematurely losing some 2 million middle-aged black women in America? Although black women make up only about 6 percent of the U.S. workforce, they make up 7 percent of all educational service workers. They make up 23 percent of America’s service industry overall.

  Black grandmothers are raising or helping to raise 44 percent of the black children in America—well above twice the grandmother-raising rate of any other racial group in America.

  In 2004, black women turned out to vote at a rate of 60 percent—twice as high as the voting rate of Hispanic women, and just under the white female turnout rate. And black grandmothers are the cornerstone of every black community in America—just ask any preacher, teacher, or person who’s ever grown up in one.