January 22, 2003

UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU!

Front-line troops disproportionately white, not black: Numbers refute long-held belief (Dave Moniz and Tom Squitieri, USA TODAY)

The American troops likeliest to fight and die in a war against Iraq are disproportionately white, not black, military statistics show -- contradicting a belief widely held since the early days of the Vietnam War.

In a little-publicized trend, black recruits have gravitated toward non-combat jobs that provide marketable skills for post-military careers, while white soldiers are over-represented in front-line combat forces.


This is also the reason that there are even fewer minorities in the higher ranks of the military. The military has traditionally relied on the servicemen with combat arms experience for top leadership positions.
Posted by Stephen Judd at January 22, 2003 6:08 AM
Comments

There's a hilarious line in this story in which the Air Force is taken to task for the low number of black fighter pilots. Talk about damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Posted by: David Cohen at January 22, 2003 8:03 AM

Disproportionate or not, the point is todays armed forces and reserves are all volunteers, whatever color or economic circumstance. They were not conscripted unfairly. They are there because they volunteered . Bless them all; the long and the short and the tall. The best force this country has ever put on the line.

Posted by: genecis at January 22, 2003 9:20 AM

The truly amazing "take-away" from this story is that so many demagogues (whether Ron Kirk, Charlie Rangle, a reporter questioning Rumsfeld the other day, etc.) can push (variations on) the tale of minorities' disproportionately bearing the brunt of our military actions with impunity. (Even in the most closely scrutinized of forums.)



This USA Today story only hints at the real picture, after all it only demonstrates a greater potential for a disproportionate body count for whites. A recent piece in NRO went further. It presented stats showing the evolution of actual casualties since Vietnam, which did show a trend for disproportionately high white casualties. Why are we all so ignorant of these facts, that our only response to demagoguery is a -- rightful enough, but evasive -- "it does not matter this is a volunteer army." Well, the demagoguery is not only irrelevant and divise, but simply incorrect.

Posted by: MG at January 22, 2003 9:54 AM

Who says that it's conservatives that rely on keeping the public dumb and uninformed? Speaking from my experience in the USMC, I can say that the majority of the grunts are, and probably will always be, white. As you move into the Intelligence fields, which are kinda the polar opposite infantry (0261 - GeoInt myself), the numer of minorities rises dramatically. Don't even get me started on the Admin (pencil pusher) fields. Just a little observation for those who didn't know.

Posted by: T-Dub at January 22, 2003 2:04 PM

Actually, the Vietnam stats don't bear out the idea that

minorities took disproportionate casualties. B.J. Burkitt, in "Stolen Valor," has the numbers.



Up to 1945, blacks were, for the most part, excluded from combat.

Posted by: Harry at January 22, 2003 4:28 PM
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