My Father’s generation so admired the men and women that served in World War II, that when the Korean War raised its ugly head years later, he and my uncle quickly finished college and headed for Korea as Marine Corp. and Army officers. In stark contrast to a professional military recruited from a patriotic civilian population, ISIS, or ISIL, clearly seems to have settled on young men drawn to violence — often as a byproduct of untreated mental illness — to carry out their suicidal agenda.

Recent reports in the United States, France, and Germany, have explored the background of the attackers in both Nice and Munich. In the case of Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the killer in the Bastille Day celebrations, his own parents were so frightened by his violence that by the time he was 19, “they dragged him to a psychiatrist,” who prescribed an antipsychotic drug, a tranquilizer and an antidepressant. “There was the beginnings of a psychosis,” the doctor who treated him in Tunisia was quoted in today’s issue of The New York Times as saying.

Likewise, the teenage gunman who killed nine people in Munich had been treated for paranoia and depression, according to his parents, and “had sought refuge in the internet, where he immersed himself in violent video games,” and the so-called dark net of encrypted networks, through which the authorities suspect that he acquired the pistol used to carry out the attack.

At the Democratic National Convention, which begins today in Philadelphia PA., it has been reported that the democratic candidates for the White House will outline plans to build a safety net for the mentally ill. Secretary Hillary Clinton and Senator Tim Kaine have long echoed warnings from the medical community: That early and efficient mental health care in the U.S. will not only reduce the overall cost of medical treatment, but will help safeguard gun violence, which continues a steady climb in America.

Ironically, these candidates might have found a way to “hit two birds with one stone.” As ISIL continues to exploit violent and mentally ill young men to carry out their suicide attacks in the West, further concentration on fixing America’s mental health system might, as a matter of course, help eliminate terrorist reliance on exploiting the mentally ill to commit violence on their behalf. We can only hope.