Trouble is that it feeds a common misperception that the people of this country have. They believe the majority of combat troops are poor minorities. When I was in the Army, it was the support units not the combat units that had the highest percentage of minorities. Combat units were mostly white middle class. In the most elite units, the ones who would be expected to see the most combat under the harshest conditions, the percentage of minorities was even lower.

I believe the reason is economic. If someone doesn’t believe they are going to get a shot at going to a good college, they join the service to learn to drive a truck or repair a plane, or operate heavy engineering machinery so they can get a good career after the service. If your plans are to go to college, you go for the jobs that give the most college and financial incentives, the combat arms.

I would say a larger percentage of troops enlisting in the combat arms are there for college money than in support units and those in support units are there more for job skill training than college money. But those are merely my own personal perceptions.