Who Serves in the Military? (Military enlistment to population ratios by region and income)

From Heritage Foundation:

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/08/who-serves-in-the-us-military-the-demographics-of-enlisted-troops-and-officers

Based on an understanding of the limitations of any objective definition of quality, this report compares military volunteers to the civilian population on four demographic characteristics: household income, education level, racial and ethnic background, and regional origin. This report finds that:

1. U.S. military service disproportionately attracts enlisted personnel and officerswho do not come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Previous Heritage Foundation research demonstrated that the quality of enlisted troops has increased since the start of the Iraq war. This report demonstrates that the same is true of the officer corps.

2. Members of the all-volunteer military are significantly more likely to come from high-income neighborhoods than from low-income neighborhoods. Only 11 percent of enlisted recruits in 2007 came from the poorest one-fifth (quintile) of neighborhoods, while 25 percent came from the wealthiest quintile. These trends are even more pronounced in the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, in which 40 percent of enrollees come from the wealthiest neighborhoods-a number that has increased substantially over the past four years.

3. American soldiers are more educated than their peers. A little more than 1 percent of enlisted personnel lack a high school degree, compared to 21 percent of men 18-24 years old, and 95 percent of officer accessions have at least a bachelor's degree.

4. Contrary to conventional wisdom, minorities are not overrepresented in military service. Enlisted troops are somewhat more likely to be white or black than their non-military peers. Whites are proportionately represented in the officer corps, and blacks are overrepresented, but their rate of overrepresentation has declined each year from 2004 to 2007. New recruits are also disproportionately likely to come from the South, which is in line with the history of Southern military tradition.

The facts do not support the belief that many American soldiers volunteer because society offers them few other opportunities. The average enlisted person or officer could have had lucrative career opportunities in the private sector. Those who argue that American soldiers risk their lives because they have no other opportunities belittle the personal

A little more than 1 percent of enlisted personnel lack a high school degree,....

I mustn't have gotten the memo. At what point did my 50+ year old high school diploma become a "degree?"

The Mountain West — Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico — is over-represented.

It would be higher if Utah did not have almost the lowest enlistment rate in America.

Are you serious?With what these schools are teaching today your highschool diploma is probably worth more than a college degree.

Unless your going into a professional area like engineering or medicine.

The midwest is unfortunately driven by a few large cities: Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, etc. If the cities were ignored the numbers would reflect differently, but then that would be true of the NE and West coast as well, maybe to a lesser degree. What is without question is the libs don’t serve at the same rate that the conservatives do.

Apparently at the same time you were given a trophy for finishing 14th in the “make me feel good” school-yard races (except they are not called “races” anymore since that implies competition).

"... The Mountain West — Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico — is over-represented. So is Southeast."

This sure seems true. The US military is almost entirely Southern and Western US demographically.

Where I live, you can't walk down the aisle of a supermarket parking lot without seeing at least one 'Rest In Peace' tribute sticker on the back of some gold star parents' vehicle signifying the death of their offspring who lived from 1986-2004. Purple Heart license plates are all over town, many being driven by the under-30 crowd -- that used to be the sole domain of elderly WWII and Korea vets. There are young people of all types here awarded Silver Stars, Bronze Stars, and fought in both Afghanistan and Iraq -- all before age 25.

At the gun show this weekend, I sat and talked for an hour with a young guy in his mid-twenties with no legs below the waist, now forevermore in a wheelchair. He's a vet and we talked about everything else BUT his wheelchair and service.

Up at the local Indian reservation, if they held a veterans' parade just about everyone of both sexes aged 25 through 40 and then from 70 on up would be marching in the parade with not many people on the sidewalks watching the veterans march past.

Over ten years of war in America with a disproportionate amount of military service members coming from where I live. They served and fought on behalf of a bunch of dazzling urbanite New York City/Washington DC citizens who served in comparatively negligible numbers after 9/11.

The next time the Islamofascists incinerate a huge swath of a blue-state US metro area real estate, let the US government draft Jay-Z and some metrosexual man-girls to go do the fighting overseas, I say. Just send the press gangs down to Whole Foods market and swoop up everyone in the organic produce aisle.

Proud to be a Texas veteran. Was there any doubt that we would be over represented?

Not only did I not get the memo....I didn’t get the trophy.....(sigh)

Interesting stats.

Only 11 percent of enlisted recruits in 2007 came from the poorest one-fifth (quintile) of neighborhoods, while 25 percent came from the wealthiest quintile

Really interesting. Because the fastest way to work your way out of a bad situation is to join the military. I wonder if kids in inner city schools - even the ones that graduate H.S. - are too sub-standard to make the grade?

The most under-represented region is the Northeast from Pennsylvania upwards.

Pennsylvania does it share. We ar in the top 10 for KIA’s in the Iraq War.

I’ve spoken with three(3) different recruiters recently... they all said they’re ‘encouraged’ to only recruit non-whites

why do you suppose that is....

The most under-represented region is the Northeast from Pennsylvania upwards.

That will change as the perverts of the region clamor to join up.But,where the rubber meets the road,they won't be of much use to the mission unless the mission is the annual Gay Pride Festival at the White House.*There* they 'll look *fabulous*.

>>I’ve spoken with three(3) different recruiters recently... they all said they’re ‘encouraged’ to only recruit non-whites<<

>do you suppose that is....<

Because that’s what the future powers to be hope to be able to use to ‘control’ the white population, the non whites of the military forces. A couple of intentionally induced racial issues within the ranks should adequately divide the military into racial groups and then the dictator is on his own.

In ‘66 we had a couple of short term issues that someone attempted to use to divide us troops in Nam. All I know about it is - A group of Black Marines were saying they were selected more often than Whites for hazardous missions. It festered for about a week then calmed down again.

We were ordered not to go into those camps during off duty hours without permission from the CO. I personally didn’t know anyone on those bases so it didn’t affect me.

Not so fast; federal law prohibits the enlistment of youth in trouble.... A local judge cannot direct a kid to join the Army or go to jail....

Every applicant has local and federal background checks run before entry in the delayed enlistment program (DP). No one joins today and ships tomorrow. Has not been so for more than a while- at least since the early 90s when I did a tour on recruiting duty, and even so when I enlisted in ‘83.

The quality of todays and the last few decades of servicemen has been very high, morally, legally educationally and physically.

Well, there goes your self esteem down the tubes. LOL.

Not so fast; federal law prohibits the enlistment of youth in trouble

Oh, yeah. The days of "Two in the slam, or four in the Corps" are long since over.

I was thinking along the lines of kids using the military to get out of a rough neighborhood, bad family situation, etc etc etc *before* they get into trouble. I knew a couple of kids in HS who did that - came from abusive families and used the military as a way out. At least one did pretty well for himself, I ran into him 10 years later and he had his Ranger tabs.