Is This Really an All-Volunteer Army?

NY Times (Week in Review) ^ | April 6, 2003 | STEVEN A. HOLMES

[Pharmboy]

Associated Press
The 4th Infantry Division, shipping out from Texas.

WASHINGTON — Does the United States military have to be representative of American society? The question has hung heavy since war with Iraq first seemed inevitable, and with it the possibility of heavy casualties. Now, with that war at a climax, a small band of critics continues to maintain that the all-volunteer force — which is 30 years old this year — is all-volunteer in name only.

They argue that relative economic disadvantage has replaced local draft boards in determining who enters the military, especially the enlisted ranks, and that it is un-American to have an affluent nation being defended by working-class young people, heavily layered with minorities.

"It's not fair that the people that we ask to fight the war are people who join the military because of economic conditions," says Representative Charles B. Rangel, the New York Democrat, who advocates a new draft.

When compared with other groups of the same age, the American military, particularly in its enlisted ranks, in fact has fewer rich people. But it also has fewer poor ones. It has more Southerners and fewer Northeasterners. It has a higher percentage of black people, especially black women, compared with the larger population, but a smaller proportion of Hispanics.

Defenders of the all-volunteer force, particularly in the Pentagon, quickly rebutted Mr. Rangel's arguments. They asserted that the military does reflect the country's population, especially when the number of officers — about one-seventh of the military, virtually all of them college graduates — is considered. They also note that while the median income for households that produce white recruits is lower than for other white homes, the median income of the families of black recruits is actually higher than it is for blacks as a whole.

Moreover, supporters of the volunteer force say, the military is, they say, more professional, better motivated and more stable when soldiers, sailors, pilots and others stay in for longer stints. They point to its performance in the Persian Gulf war, the Afghanistan campaign and now Iraq. And they shudder at returning to the often-troubled conscripted military of the Vietnam era, just to make a point about equity that not everyone feels could even be remedied.

"I served in a draft force," a senior Defense Department official said earlier this year. "I remember when enlisted folks fragged — as we liked to say — threw grenades into the officers' quarters in Vietnam. Not a pretty picture."

Comparisons with Vietnam gloss over the experience of World War II, when an American military force, heavy with conscripts, defeated the German military machine, considered at the time the world's best. Put side by side, the comparisons suggest that when it comes to efficiency and motivation, the issue may not be volunteers versus draftees, but a popular war verses an unpopular one.

But the central question about the volunteer force remains Mr. Rangel's: How much choice is there? In some sense the fact that blacks, especially black women, not only enlist, but re-enlist in a higher proportion than whites is seen as an example of the equal opportunity the armed services provide. But it could also be viewed as indicating the lack of opportunity — real or perceived — for African-Americans in civilian society.

Demographic trends don't promise to make the choices easier. With incomes having stagnated except for those people with college degrees, the percentage of youths choosing to continue their education after high school has exploded. In 1970, about 55 percent of men and about 48 percent of women enrolled in college right out of high school. By 1999, 63 percent of men and 64 percent of women were doing so. The sharp increases, which show no sign of leveling off, have put enormous pressure on military recruiters to fill their quotas.

The Defense Department has responded by trying to reduce the need to make a choice between military service and a college education. In recent years it has expanded programs to help members of the military pay for college after active duty. It has permitted more of them to attend college while in the service. So the issue of who serves and who doesn't becomes more and more a matter of who can afford college without help.

Recruiters' task is further complicated by some more specific educational trends as well. Studies have shown that one of the biggest influences on teenagers' career decisions is the educational attainment of their mothers — more so than of their fathers.

With the spectacular growth in the number of women going to college (they now outnumber men), the Pentagon faces a daunting prospect: some day, those legions of educated mothers will, at the same time, be setting a standard at home that will steer their children more surely toward college, even as their added income will help insure that the family has the money to pay for college without turning to military service.

"Parents are certainly major influences, mothers in particular," said Paul R. Sackett, a professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota who studied the challenges that face military recruiters.

Among one group, Hispanics, increases in college attendance have not kept pace with those among blacks and non-Hispanic whites. This could mean that the percentage of the military made up of Hispanics will grow, and the chances that will happen received a boost from President Bush last July, when he signed an executive order providing that any legal immigrant who has been on active duty since Sept. 11, 2001, may immediately apply for citizenship, bypassing the normal three-year waiting period for military personnel and the five-year period for civilians.

But do all of these changes guarantee that the military will become any more or less reflective of American society? Consider this: Even though a shrinking proportion of teenagers has been seeking to enlist, the number of American teenagers is expected to grow in the coming decade, giving recruiters a bigger pool to appeal to. And even if the armed services sign up more Hispanics, demographers say the percentage of the population that is Hispanic is likely to rise relatively quickly too. So the military may wind up merely reflecting the country's demographic change.

Such calculations — and debates about whether the burden of military service will be fairly distributed — are the price of trying to keep an all-volunteer force in balance with a population that is, itself, constantly changing.

[Pharmboy]

They did produce graphs in the print edition that they did not post with the article. Let me try to summarize:

The civilian population is 70% White, 12% Black, 13% Hispanic and 5% Other.
The Enlisted Military Personnel are 63% White, 22% Black, 9% Hispanic and 6% Other.

They also show that the enlisted folks have, on average, achieved less in the way of higher education.

However, as has been noted earlier in this thread, fewer front-line troops and significantly less special forces are black.

[okie01]

"They also show that the enlisted folks have, on average, achieved less in the way of higher education."

Given that the relevant choices of the average high school graduate is to a.) go directly to college, or b.) go into the military in order to go to college or c.) go into the military because you aren't interested in college, it stands to reason that the enlisted sample would reveal less higher education -- at any given age.

Thanks for posting this. It serves as an object example of the NYTimes' complete intellectual bankruptcy.