Long before Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, ages 18 and 17, massacred schoolmates at Columbine High school in 1999, I had been thinking about violence committed by boys at the cusp of manhood. I thought then and still think that since it’s a global issue, the United Nations could play an active role resolving global societies’ intractable youth violence.

In places with limited resources — unemployment, lack of education and schools, on top of poor parenting — armies of boys resort to destructive behavior. All around me I saw violent 18-24 year olds killing people, destroying property. Given its global nature, I felt that a solution had to exist for the universal 18-year-old at the verge of manhood.

Instances abound the world over of young men fighting in irrational conflicts. African Civil wars, from Sierra Leone to the DRC, are routinely fought by boys and young men. Al Qaeda conscripted 18 year olds for suicide missions, training many of them years before the August 1998 US Embassies’ bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in East Africa. Al Qaeda’s philosophy occupied a vacuum left by the larger Muslim society. Muslim youth were proselytized into believing in and making sacrifices most of us would consider preposterous. Bin Laden used his youthful army to attack enemies, including the US. The 19 men, most of them Saudis, who flew planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, ranged in age from 20 to 33.

American terrorist groups have used the internet to recruit boys and young men of the same age as Al Qaeda’s — gullible enough, lonely enough, and malleable enough — to commit murder in the name of some long-forgotten heroes, battles or causes. 17- 22 year olds armed with AR-15s have gunned down innocent citizens to fulfill some atavistic white-supremacist ambition, killing Blacks in Charleston, SC; at markets in Buffalo and El Paso, among other places, for no discernible reason.

Characters strutting across the stage of the American theater express the same phenomenon whose roots I mulled over years ago. The difference is their skin color and their professed religion. The passion is the same — exploited, misguided and misused. All are lied to about the elysian state of life they will live henceforth. Arab Jihad leaders, like the Proud Boys’ leaders, are older guys seducing boys to commit acts of horror.

Confronting Robert Frost’s, “Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled,” many youth follow the wrong path in Frost’s yellow wood. Impetuous, passionate but untutored, they fall for grandiose promises. Sincere, honest tutelage is what they require to literally save them from the likes of the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and sundry other aberrant supremacist groups whose minds are not much different from Bin Laden’s.

The violence that surrounds us is a global public health problem according to the World Health Organization. It involves bullying, physical fighting and sexual assault, that end up with homicide. For the 10-29-year-old group, homicide is the fourth-most-common cause of death, 84% of them males. 3-24% of women report being raped. The WHO describes individual, familial and community risk factors which if corrected lead to healthier lives. Prevention requires a comprehensive approach to address social determinants of violence such as income inequality, rapid demographic changes, and social protection.

In many countries a two-year compulsory national service helps many youth to better self-knowledge and greater love of country. American Mormon youth have performed overseas service for decades; I would recommend America consider it for the rest of our young. It certainly is my prescription for Africa’s youth.

The U.N. cannot solve our youth violence problem. It hence falls upon us, family members, and members of communities, to teach, mentor and help direct our teenagers as they turn the page over to manhood. Alas, for far too long, the Columbine duo cried out for help.

We’ve created a place riven by many divisions that lead youth into the maelstrom of confusion, hate and violence. The only answer is for grown-ups to reconcile with each other. We’re not red or blue when it comes to our children’s health and well-being, and the nation’s future.