Posted on 09/13/2014 6:14:56 AM PDT by pabianice
The U.S. Army launched a new recruiting video at the All-American Bowl -- it's largest recruiting event -- aimed at piquing the interests of minority recruits into joining the Army's officer corps.
[1st Lt. Drexel King is featured in the Marine Corps Recruiting Command’s newest diversity advertising campaign, Fighting with Purpose. King is a Raleigh, N.C. native. Marine Corps illustration by Cpl. Nate Carberry]
New Marine Corps ads target women, minorities to join as officers
The Marine Corps has launched a multimedia advertising campaign aimed at encouraging more women and minorities to join as officers and ending a decades-old stereotype that the Corps is the domain of white men.
[For Command Sgt. Maj. Marilyn Washington, the top soldier with the 1st Signal Brigade headquartered at Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, the inauguration has historic timing as well. U.S. Army photo]
Black military leaders express pride, not surprise, at progress
STUTTGART, Germany — Anthony Jackson recalls the encounter like it was yesterday.
WASHINGTON — Command of the Army's combat battalions and brigades — its pipeline to top leadership — is virtually devoid of black officers, according to interviews, documents and data obtained by USA Today.
The lack of black officers who lead infantry, armor and field artillery battalions and brigades — there are no black colonels at the brigade level this year — threatens the Army's effectiveness, disconnects it from American society and deprives black officers of the principal route to top Army posts, according to officers and military sociologists. Fewer than 10 percent of the active-duty Army's officers are black compared with 18 percent of its enlisted men, according to the Army.
The problem is most acute in its main combat units: infantry, armor and artillery. In 2014, there was not a single black colonel among those 25 brigades, the Army's main fighting unit of about 4,000 soldiers. Brigades consist of three to four battalions of 800 to 1,000 soldiers led by lieutenant colonels. Just one of those 78 battalions is scheduled to be led by a black officer in 2015.
Right now it is relatively difficult to get into the Marines. I know because my son joined, and it took him over a year to get a spot at boot camp. There should be one branch of the military that is not dumbed-down to accommodate our society's failures.
That was then, this is now.
If only racism explains statistical disparities, how do liberals explain the NFL and NBA?
When they go for quotas they never get the smart ones but it makes the dumb feel better it’s a no win deal.
That’s crazy. Just look how much better off Africa is than Europe. Think of all those famous Black scientists...
This IMNVHO was the great failure of the Abolitionists. There was a deal to be made to end slavery that they did not want to pay for in money. They preferred to pay it in blood. The other side was also led by quite intractable elements who thought they could win independence for the Confederacy.
As the slave population grew exponentially and thus with ever lower productivity, the less the "South" could afford it. Many Southerners realized this.
Some 200,000 African-Americans did eventually fight on the Union side, with some occasional success. On the other side, the South would never have lasted so long without the contributions slaves made to their effort.
First you have to get Black officer candidates to choose combat arms branches. High speed black officer candidates look at support branches as a long term career choice. White officer candidates look at combat branches as a stepping stone to either a star, or government/contractor/procurement work.
I’m not dissing on high speed Blacks, I was a Finance Clerk myself back in the day. The BEST 1SG I had was 1SG Braithwaite from the US Virgin Islands. That guy was a born effing leader. Different strokes for different folks. Trying to force a square peg through a round hole is not productive.
By its nature, the military is the last place where leadership should be determined by social experiment rather than by merit.
If thats what they want, they should take a hard look at their combat sergeants and find some who could be bumped up through OCS.
If they want effective combat officers, why wouldn’t that be the place to start?
Good leadership is good leadership. Am I missing something here? Is “black” leadership exceptional or better? The army sociologists are major a-holes and fools. they should become unemployed immediately.
Or transferred to a combat unit. Then they can find out first hand what leadership looks like.
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