The All Volunteer American Military
In what has to be a direct rebuttal of Charlie Rangels repeated falsehoods about the all-volunteer American Military, Russell Beland and Curtis Gilroy, both from the Department of Defense, explain the reality of that force. It is not at all what Rangel makes it out to be.
Still, some individuals continue to look for trouble where none exists. One common strain of criticism surfaced in the Nov. 4 op-ed by Princeton professor Uwe E. Reinhardt, who asserted that "it is well known that to fill the ranks of enlisted soldiers, sailors and Marines, the Pentagon draws heavily on the bottom half of the nation's income distribution, favoring in its hunt for recruits schools in low-income neighborhoods."
The implication is that the military scoops up the disadvantaged, uneducated and unemployed from the nation's slums and sends them off to fight while the children of the upper and middle classes remain home in comfort and safety. That conveys an impression of military service as a last resort for those with nowhere else to turn. The reality is far different.
Each year about 180,000 men and women enlist in the active-duty forces (another 16,000 are commissioned as officers, and tens of thousands more, including many active-duty veterans, join the National Guard and the reserves). Those who enlist come from all parts of the country, from all races and ethnicities, and from households across the economic spectrum. Far from being concentrated among the poorly educated and economically disadvantaged, military recruits, the data show, represent the best of America's youth. More than 90 percent of recruits have high school diplomas, compared with 80 percent of American youth overall. About two-thirds of today's recruits score in the upper half of standardized aptitude tests. Military recruits are also more physically fit than American youth in general, and they are subject to strict character screening.
Finally, recruits come disproportionately from neighborhoods with above-average incomes. This was true before the war with Iraq, and it remains true today. In fact, those recruited during the war are more likely to come from affluent neighborhoods than are those who were recruited before the war.
Which is precisely what a lot of us have been saying all along. The military is meeting recruitment and retention goals, and the makeup of the forces is not disproportionately made up of the lower socio-economic groups. But spreading these lies is the same type of tactic that the left used to build the myth that minorities represented a disproportionately high number of casualties in Vietnam. That canard is still held up as the gospel Truth™ by the true believers even though it is laughably easy to refute.
By Quilly Mammoth, November 25, 2006 @ 8:15 am
Just one point to ponder. This is not meant to be in support of a draft, but it has come to my attention as I’ve spoken to people about the military that they usually fall into one of two catagories. Either they know quite a few friends and family members that have or are serving or they know no one.
I started asking this question of people I met or were slightly acquainted with…people who wouldn’t know of my service…to get a feel for who supported the war. The extremes of the responses amazed me.
The latest spittle spraying meltdown of Lawrence O’Donell where in addition to calling everyone chickehawks and cowards He makes the statement that people don’t know anyone who serves.
Now I disagree with his thrust, I think that the peole most likely to support the effort in the GWOT are those who have served or know someone who is serving. Are we creating an American Military Class? Is there only a certain segment of society that is willing to do what is required to defend us all…sheepdogs and sheep?
There’s some real thought that needs to go into all this that sadly isn’t going to happen in the Public Square because of the level of political discourse in America today.