Growing up in the United States, alcohol was always a "taboo" subject. It was known as a substance that only existed to intoxicate people. Indeed, today we are faced with many incident's that could have been avoided had alcohol been out of the picture, and we blame the drink for the actions of the individual.
In my primary and secondary education, I was told that alcohol should be completely avoided because it is dangerous and has no value other than getting people drunk.
In Europe, there are festivals where kids with their parents can taste different cultural beverages and learn how to be safe with them. Incidentally, there are far fewer related incidents there than there are here.
Finally, if you can draft a person to go to war, he should be able to have a beer with his colleagues.