Another Liberal Myth Destroyed by Fact.

[Jack]

Quite a few people seem to bring up the "Fact" that the military is full of the poor, and underprivilaged. Seems that myth has been put to rest. Perhaps the leftists will come up with a new talking point.....

USA Today
November 28, 2005
Pg. 13

Debunking The Myth Of The Underprivileged Soldier

By Tim Kane and James Jay Carafano, USA Today

They all volunteered. The U.S. soldiers pitching in with hurricane relief along the Gulf Coast and those fighting and dying in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere decided, on their own, to serve their nation.

Or was the decision made so freely? Could it be that unscrupulous Pentagon recruiters duped them, taking advantage of their poverty, their lack of education and the bleak futures they share as members of the USA's urban underclass?

That's the view of some critics, such as New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, who writes that “very few” of the soldiers fighting in Iraq “are coming from the privileged economic classes,” and that there would likely be no war if rich kids had to fight. According to Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., social equality demands reinstatement of the draft, which he justifies by asserting that “the most privileged Americans are underrepresented or absent.” Herbert concludes that there is “something very, very wrong with this picture.”

What's “very, very wrong” with the Rangel-Herbert picture is that it has no factual basis.

According to a comprehensive study of all enlistees for the years 1998-99 and 2003 that The Heritage Foundation just released, the typical recruit in the all-volunteer force is wealthier, more educated and more rural than the average 18- to 24-year-old citizen is. Indeed, for every two recruits coming from the poorest neighborhoods, there are three recruits coming from the richest neighborhoods.

Yes, rural areas and the South produced more soldiers than their percentage of the population would suggest in 2003. Indeed, four rural states — Montana, Alaska, Wyoming and Maine — rank 1-2-3-4 in proportion of their 18-24 populations enlisted in the military. But this isn't news.

Enlistees have always come from rural areas. Yet a new study, reported in The Washington Post earlier this month, suggests that higher enlistment rates in rural counties are new, implying a poorer military. They err by drawing conclusions from a non-random sample of a few counties, a statistically cloaked anecdote. The only accurate way to assess military demographics is to consider all recruits.

If, for example, we consider the education of every recruit, 98% joined with high-school diplomas or better. By comparison, 75% of the general population meets that standard. Among all three-digit ZIP code areas in the USA in 2003 (one can study larger areas by isolating just the first three digits of ZIP codes), not one had a higher graduation rate among civilians than among its recruits.

In fact, since the 9/11 attacks, more volunteers have emerged from the middle and upper classes and fewer from the lowest-income groups. In 1999, both the highest fifth of the nation in income and the lowest fifth were slightly underrepresented among military volunteers. Since 2001, enlistments have increased in the top two-fifths of income levels but have decreased among the lowest fifth.

Allegations that recruiters are disproportionately targeting blacks also don't hold water. First, whites make up 77.4% of the nation's population and 75.8% of its military volunteers, according to our analysis of Department of Defense data.

Second, we explored the 100 three-digit ZIP code areas with the highest concentration of blacks, which range from 24.1% black up to 68.6%. These areas, which account for 14.6% of the adult population, produced 16.6% of recruits in 1999 and only 14.1% in 2003.

Maintaining the strength and size of our all-volunteer military isn't always easy. But Americans step up when their country needs them. To suggest the system is failing or exploiting citizens is wrong. And to make claims about the nature of U.S. troops to discredit their mission ought to be politically out of bounds.

Tim Kane is an Air Force veteran, and James Jay Carafano is an Army veteran. Both are research fellows at The Heritage Foundation.

[Warriorbird]

The Heritage Foundation of course being completely unbiased in every way.


We generate solutions consistent with our beliefs and market them to the Congress, the Executive Branch, the news media and others.

[Edited on 12-2-2005 by Warriorbird]

[Tsa`ah]

Our Mission
Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institute - a think tank - whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.

Find a better source IMO.

[Warriorbird]

Quality stuff, Jack.


The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday is Worse Than You Thought

[Jack]

The Department of Defense did it's own study as well. I suppose you'll tell me the DoD is biased too....

WASHINGTON, Nov. 23, 2005 – The U. S. military is not a "poor man's force. "
That's the conclusion Defense Department officials reached following examination of enlisted recruiting statistics gathered over the past year.
"There is an issue of how representative of America is the force," said Curt Gilroy, the director of DoD's accessions policy in the Pentagon.

DoD tracks "representativeness" - as Gilroy calls it - very closely. And representativeness can take a whole host of forms - race, education, social status, income, region and so on. "When you look at all of those, you find that the force is really quite representative of the country," he said in a recent interview. "It mirrors the country in many of these. And where it doesn't mirror America, it exceeds America. "

The data shows the force is more educated than the population at large. Servicemembers have high school diplomas or the general equivalency diploma. More servicemembers have some college than the typical 18- to 24-year-olds. "To carry representativeness to the extreme, we would have to have a less-educated force or we would want a lower-aptitude force," Gilroy said.

The study is part of DoD's focus to bring the best recruits into the military. The services - who are responsible for manning, equipping and training the force - take this data and apply it to recruiting efforts.

The force is a volunteer force; no one is coerced into serving. The military is one option young people have after high school. Military service offers money for college - money a large segment of the population doesn't have. For those people, the military is an attractive option.

Many young people who don't yet know what they want to do see the military as a place to serve and decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives, rather than take a low-paying job or do nothing.

Critics say the U. S. military has too many African-Americans as compared to the population and not enough Hispanics or Asian-Americans. "We don't recruit for race," Gilroy said. "We have standards, and if people meet those standards, then should we say they are not allowed in because of race? That would be wrong. "

The statistics show the number of African-American servicemembers is dropping. That concerns Gilroy and his office. The military is a leader in equal opportunity in the United States, he said, adding that few, if any, Fortune 500 companies can match the equal employment opportunity record of the military. The office is studying why young black men and women are not signing up.

The office also is studying the Hispanic population in America. Census records say Hispanics are the largest minority group in the United States. Young Hispanic men and women have a strong tendency to serve in the military, though so far, only the Marine Corps has been "able to break the code" to get significant numbers of recruits, Gilroy said.

On the socioeconomic side, the military is strongly middle class, Gilroy said. More recruits are drawn from the middle class and fewer are coming from poorer and wealthier families. Recruits from poorer families are actually underrepresented in the military, Gilroy said.

Other trends are that the number of recruits from wealthier families is increasing, and the number of recruits from suburban areas has increased. This also tracks that young men and women from the middle class are serving in the military.

Young men and women from urban areas are not volunteering, Gilroy said. In fact, urban areas provide far fewer recruits as a percentage of the total population than small towns and rural areas.

DoD and the services will use these statistics and more to craft their recruiting policies, Gilroy said.

News Archive

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NOTE: View the original version of this web page on DefenseLINK, the official website of the U. S. Department of Defense.
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[Tsa`ah]

Originally posted by Jack
The Department of Defense did it's own study as well. I suppose you'll tell me the DoD is biased too....


Absofuckinglutely.

Neither article presented hard fact, just commentary via abstract comparisons.

[Axhinde]

During my time spent in active duty, the number of "rich kids" was vastly inferior to soldiers from less fortunate families. You can throw every so-called study at me, but your internet facts can't possibly dissuade my own eyes. And I'm not even political.

[Jack]

Originally posted by Axhinde
During my time spent in active duty, the number of "rich kids" was vastly inferior to soldiers from less fortunate families. You can throw every so-called study at me, but your internet facts can't possibly dissuade my own eyes. And I'm not even political.

Durring my eight years spent on active duty, I would have to say the number of Marines that came from middle class families vastly outnumber both categories. That is the point of it all. The military is not comprised mainly of the uneducated and poor as many would have you belive. Noone can argue that "Rich Kids" make up the majority of the military, but the same can be said of the "Poor Kids". Since neither article seems to be considered a reliable source, why not look at the raw data yourselves: http://www.mfrc-dodqol.org/stat.cfm#demo

[The Korean]

Ditto on what Ax said. In the clinic I work at, I'm 1 of the 5 white guys that work in a clinic of 30. The other 25 people are black. I'd say those numbers are a little skewed....

[Gan]

Whats confusing is that the first post sites USA Today as a source.

Is suppose if moveon.org and other liberal news sites can post rhetoric, others with opposing view can do the same.

It doesnt make it right though.

[Jack]

Originally posted by Ganalon
Whats confusing is that the first post sites USA Today as a source.

Is suppose if moveon.org and other liberal news sites can post rhetoric, others with opposing view can do the same.

It doesnt make it right though.

The article is from USA Today, the study it is based on is from the Heritage Foundation.

[Tsa`ah]

Originally posted by Jack
Since neither article seems to be considered a reliable source, why not look at the raw data yourselves: http://www.mfrc-dodqol.org/stat.cfm#demo

Since neither article can be considered reliable, why point back to the second source?

Also, looking through the PDFs, I didn't notice a break down of poor kids, middle class kids, or rich kids.

Point that one out for me?

[The Korean]

The data grouping is too general anyway. For example, take the 94% of enlisted have less than a bachelor's degree. They don't differentiate in that percentage associates, high school certificates, and GED's. "Uneducated" people would have a hard time of even getting in, since the military requires you to have at least a GED to even get in, unless somehow by a miracle you get a waiver to get in.

What I would like to see, is the percentage of who got what score on their ASVAB test, which is what tells you what jobs you can get in the military, at least right off the bat. If memory serves me correctly, for my boot camp division of 50 people, 4 including me scored above a 90 on that test, 10 between 80 and 90, around 5 between 70-80, and the rest scored below, with more than half the rest scoring below a 50. I believe in the Navy, the lowest score you can receive is a 30 to get the job of a Culinary Specialist or a deck seaman. Now, a graph representing who got what on their test would be a better representation of how many "uneducated" people we have in the military.

[Gan]

I remember taking the ASVAB(?) test in high school. Then I kept getting call after call from recruiters.

I never found out what my score was though. :(

Perhaps they needed more cooks? :shrug:

[Warriorbird]

Just because you were in the Marines and experienced something doesn't mean it's true for the entire services, Jack.

[Gan]

<insert a stupid, lame brained TOJ quote here>

[Tsa`ah]

Originally posted by Ganalon
I remember taking the ASVAB(?) test in high school. Then I kept getting call after call from recruiters.

I never found out what my score was though. :(

Perhaps they needed more cooks? :shrug:

Depends on when you took it. I believe it is still a requirement in this state for all Juniors to take it. We took it while the Gulf War was going on, and in my class of 34, all but 6 scored above an 80. All but 6 of my class mates were plaqued with calls until they either enlisted or graduated college. I scored a 95 on the thing and even after I was turned down due to being asthmatic, I would get about 5 calls a month.

My oldest and youngest brothers recieved junk mail and phone solicitation for about a year after boot camp, both scored in the 90s as well.

[Sean of the Thread]

Originally posted by Jack

Originally posted by Axhinde
During my time spent in active duty, the number of "rich kids" was vastly inferior to soldiers from less fortunate families. You can throw every so-called study at me, but your internet facts can't possibly dissuade my own eyes. And I'm not even political.

Durring my eight years spent on active duty, I would have to say the number of Marines that came from middle class families vastly outnumber both categories. That is the point of it all. The military is not comprised mainly of the uneducated and poor as many would have you belive. Noone can argue that "Rich Kids" make up the majority of the military, but the same can be said of the "Poor Kids". Since neither article seems to be considered a reliable source, why not look at the raw data yourselves: http://www.mfrc-dodqol.org/stat.cfm#demo

I didn't spend 8 years in the Marines but I agree with the others.. those numbers are way off. It almost makes me wonder if you have an agenda?


I also think the USMC isn't the best example (small amount compared) as it is MUCH different story in the Army.. I swear I've met more retards from the Army then any other service.

[Unique]

Originally posted by Xyelin

I didn't spend 8 years in the Marines but I agree with the others.. those numbers are way off. It almost makes me wonder if you have an agenda?



If we can cite anecdotes as evidence, here's one: I live in the Bronx. I am the only white guy on the subway 95% of the time returning from work. Every day two recruiters stand on the corner by the station. Every day they hand out pamphlets and talk to the latinos and blacks going by. Every day they take one look at me, look away, and hand a pamphlet to the non-white male behind me.

Anecdotes are fun.

Unique.

[TheEschaton]

According to a comprehensive study of all enlistees for the years 1998-99 and 2003 that The Heritage Foundation just released, the typical recruit in the all-volunteer force is wealthier, more educated and more rural than the average 18- to 24-year-old citizen is.

Game, Set, Match, to liberals. That's like me quoting NAMBLA for objective information on pedophilia.

Now, I can agree that the vast majority of the armed forces are probably middle class. But I a) bet it's lower middle class, as opposed to upper middle class, and b) I think lower-to-mid middle class families are being screwed as it is, and that "middle class" is just a euphemism for getting bent over, in the good old US of A.

Anecdote-to-be-taken-with-grain-of-salt: I'm from a upper middle class neighborhood (though we don't belong to the upper middle class). I don't know anyone who joined the military. I worked in a poor African American community with HIV+ people. Every one of them had a relative in the military.

-TheE-

[Latrinsorm]

Originally posted by Unique
Every day they take one look at me, look awayObviously the hippie-dar is a resounding success. :yes:

For the "Army vs." part of the debate, a cursory examination of the data shows that the Army has a larger percentage of minority soldiers than (for instance) the Marines, especially at the enlisted level.

I too am unable to find any information on economic background, but the ethnographic and educational backgrounds are (again) made apparent by a cursory examination. Comparing to the Census Bureau's 2000 information, we can see 19 vs. 13 for blacks, 4.1 vs 4.5 for Asian/Pacific, 1.2 vs 1.5 for Native American, and 9 vs. 13 for Latino (although it's pretty apparent the DOD and Census have different ways of taking Latino into account). So in short, the Armed Forces are overdisproportionately black and under Latino.

That being said, it's unbelievably insulting to suggest that because there are more blacks in the military than the average population would suggest, they're being targetted more by recruiters.

For education:
Most Active Duty enlisted members have at least a high school diploma (97.7%), which is higher
than the percent of the U.S. civilian population that had at least a high school diploma (84.1%)
in 2002.At least 3.7% have a Bachelor's or better. At least 86.1% of officers have a Bachelor's or better.

The accusation that the DOD would flat out lie about the makeup of the Armed Forces would be surprising if I didn't know who was making it.

[Unique]

Originally posted by Latrinsorm

Originally posted by Unique
Every day they take one look at me, look away

Obviously the hippie-dar is a resounding success. :yes:

lol, no, I dress quite nicely (usually slacks, button front shirt, and lately my black wool coat) and I have short hair.

Or maybe I just smell... ?

[Latrinsorm]

Oh the hippie-dar uses an extremely sophisticated combination of tachyon bursts and quantum possibility smearing. It has nothing to do with clothes. Think of it like using radar to see how thick ice is, hippie. :)

[Sean of the Thread]

Originally posted by Unique

Originally posted by Latrinsorm

Originally posted by Unique
Every day they take one look at me, look away

Obviously the hippie-dar is a resounding success. :yes:

lol, no, I dress quite nicely (usually slacks, button front shirt, and lately my black wool coat) and I have short hair.

Or maybe I just smell... ?

So their bias towards you has nothing to do with economic backgroud or race. It prolly has to do with the fact they think you're homosexual.

[Necromancer]

First and foremost, the Heritage Foundation is engaging in a HUGE logical flaw in this study. They're equating enlistment for one year to the general population of the military. One class of enlistees does not a entire military make. So based on that alone, the entire report is already more fiction than actual fact.

Secondly, let's look at the year in question: 2003. Two years after 9/11 there was indeed a huge demographic shift as well as an economic shift. Jobs become less readily available and the average citizen became more patriotic. So you ended up with more people considering the military for economic reasons (middle-class whites who, prior to the recession, didn't have reason to fear for their job prospects and thus didn't have a large enouch economic incentive to join the military) and for political reasons (not only did the military begin launching huge youth-targetted enlistment campaigns that brought the military to the dinner table for many families that hadn't considered it, but a wave of nationalism sparked a renewed interest and veneration of military service). The year in question, for these reasons and more, was an exception to a long-standing military enlistment tradition.

Now, on to specifics about the report.



There is no official definition of middle class, so any study that sets out to talk about it is already defining "it" in a strategic way.

If anyone actually read the Heritage Foundation Report, they'd see that when determining income brackets. They had brackets set at $0-29,000 (slightly eggagerating the lowest income bracket actually), and the highest at $52,000-200,000. There were five total income brackets used. Which means that three of them were between $29,001-51,999. With the 5th quintile (the ones deemed above middle class for the purposes of the study) was a spread of $150,000 in income, three times the combination of the previous four quintiles.

The way they defined middle class was the space between $29,000-51,999 a year for a family of four.

So when they try to claim that the top 1/5th of the population is representing 18.6% of the enlistment, they're actually vastly overstating how many truly above middle class people are enlisting. There is no discussion of households over $200,000, and if you want to truly look at the middle 50% of the US, it ranges from slightly under $24,000 to $70,000 a year for a family of four. Heritage was using their own, highly skewed, calculations. Assuredly, a disproportionate number of enlistess came from the $52,000-70,000 part of the top 1/5th bracket (which still didn't even take into consideration the top 1/5 of the population)

If you read further, they do an analysis of household incomes. But these incomes are done not by actual individual statistics, but by aggregate averages over entire "neighborhood", which are actually generally speaking an entire zip code. The report thus *assumes* a certain average household income on the part of recruits based on what zip code they're from, but it has no way to determine if the recruits are coming from the poorer sections of those neighborhoods. If the military *does* in fact draw more low-income people, then it is reasonable to say that the recruits ARE overrepresented from the poorest parts of these zip codes, and that the average household income calculation used is inflating the actual incomes of their families.

Education was a stat they loved to flaunt. The enlisted soldiers actually had a higher education rate than the general population. What Heritage was comparing was the education rate of enlistees (18-24 year olds) in the year 2003 with the OVERALL education levels of their entire zip code. It is no secret that youth today are FAR more likely to be educated than the youth of a generation ago (this is across the board, all ethnicities and income levels; though the amounts obviously differ based on these factors). The fact that recruits were *barely* more educated than the general populations of their zip codes (which also included children under the age of 5 and those currently attending high school or lower, fyi) speaks volumes about the actual disparities going on. If you're comparing these people (who're more likely to be educated in general and who are all of the appropriate age to actually have a degree..as opposed to say 16 year-olds who wouldn't have one yet) to an entire group of people that spans multiple generations AND age groups; you're already engaging in a HUGE fallacy. The truth is, these enlistees should have been compared to their own age brackets in their areas, but they weren't. One can guess that had they been, the enlistees would have been less educated on the whole since the disparity between them and a population that is full of uneducated people (older and younger mostly) was so small.

In terms of racial breakdown, things get REALLY fishy. First, Heritage is using racial breakdowns in enlistees from the Census and not the Department of Defense. The numbers are not the same (remember that the census is largely voluntary and the ones who choose not to fill it out may very well be the poorest and most politically disenfranchised due to race and ethnicity)

Also, Heritage is using Census definitions of white to come up with their numbers. The definition of white in the Census INCLUDED Hispanics, which inflated the number dramatically, adding an additional 14%.

The actual DoD numbers for 2003 for the total military composition (not just enlistees) are:

19.1% African American
64.2% White
4.1% Asian-American
1.2% Native American
9% Hispanic
and .2% multiracial

The CIA's puts US racial demographics at:
69% white
4.2% Asian American
.2% Native
13% Black
14% Hispanic

A breakdown of the numbers demonstrates a few things:
Whites are underrepresented (despite what Heritage is claiming) by 5% (and VASTLY overrepresented in officer ranks; only 9% of minorities were officers; meaning only 46,000 out of 227,000 were officers...if you don't know, officers are the ones with college degrees coming into the military).

Blacks are overrepresented by 6%,

Hispanics are underrepresented by 5% (don't forget, the Hispanic/Latino/Chicano population explosion has been very recent, and a huge percentage are here illegally and thus are unable to serve. What we really need is a percentage of hispanic/latino/chicano people in the US who are ABLE to serve legally and DO serve; my guess is it would be overrpresented as well)

Asian-Americans are at about their population level (the group has been notoriously resistant to engaging in US civil society, government, and military, so I would guess that this number is rapidly on the rise as we have a growing second-generation population of Asian-Americans that wasn't there before)

Native/Alaskans are overrepresented 1%, which, considering they are .2% of the general population, is dramatic.

Even Heritage reports that minorities are overrepresented in the Army, which constitutes the "front lines". In 2003, minorities were 43% of the Army's forces, compared to 39% of the total. They are also overrepresented in the Navy, which is the second string "Front line" (these two groups have the largest percentage of wartime casualties)

The bottome line: Don't trust the Heritage Foundation. They LOVE their skewed reports.

[Latrinsorm]

It is a skewed report, but the true numbers aren't really that far off from population averages, making the claims it sought to rebut partially rebutted.

[Unique]

Originally posted by Latrinsorm
It is a skewed report, but the true numbers aren't really that far off from population averages, making the claims it sought to rebut partially rebutted.

Define "not far off".

By my reckoning, the black representation in the military is 30% higher than in the general population. And the Native American population is 600% greater in the military than in the general population.

Those seem pretty far off to me.

Unique.

[Latrinsorm]

The numbers I found say the Native American population is just about right. I don't know where Necro got 0.2% from.

The numbers for the black population are certainly not close, but from the tone of the original statements, I was expecting something like 100% or 300%.

[Back]

Just wondering why this is a so-called “liberal” myth?

Isn’t it general consensus that the majority of the people on this planet aren’t exactly all Einsteins? (myself included, of course)

[Warriorbird]

Because conservatives and their shills (folks like Latrin) want a talking point to respond to the "liberal media" mocking them about their low recruiting efforts. They're also angry that San Fransisco kicked them out from recruiting in schools.

[Necromancer]

My numbers came from a CIA profile of US Demographics. Heritage used the Census.

[Necromancer]

Let's also take into account education and socioeconomics. Regardless of racial disparities (which ARE there), the income disparities are likely much worse. The Heritage Foundation report, once analyzed, ends up giving us absolutely no information about socioeconomic background and education of the enlistees. Neither, as it stands, does the Department of Defense.

Anecdotally, we know that military service is stronger in lower-income families and in rural families. Until someone finds statistics proving otherwise, it's a tough sell to convince us that the wealthy are just as likely as the impoverished to choose enlistment.

[Sean of the Thread]

Bottom line it is a good job with good benefits for those that are in position to better themselves by taking advantage of it.

[Warriorbird]

I definitely agree with that. I've seen the military do wonderful things for a lot of my relatives. I'm going to try to get into JAG. With that said... I think there's been a lot of dubious recruiting practices during this recent recruiting crunch.

[Back]

Originally posted by Xyelin
Bottom line it is a good job with good benefits for those that are in position to better themselves by taking advantage of it.

With the government failing them for college, sure. Don’t get my left-ass wrong. Services are a good way to go and very honorable. There are many jobs out there for those who fulfill their terms.

[Necromancer]

Yeah, I have mixed feelings. My ex-boyfriend would probably be some combination of dead, drug-addicted, and gang-affiliated if he hadn't enlisted from high school.

But it's taking advantage of peoples' poverty and the distinct lack of resources for the impoverished and the rural youth of the country. Those huge enlistment bonuses should be going to funding for college educations and/or vocational training.

Sweat shops might be the best alternative for people who live near free trade zones, but it's still an ogre's choice: work in horrible conditions that will likely lead to severe health problems within a few short years or die of starvation...but not before you've watched your children die first. The military recruitment efforts are simply a milder form of this.

[Warriorbird]

Eh. When you consider the benefits and such...I think it's not really fair to compare it to sweatshops. I think hearing about a relative of one of my friends from home getting told he should take his GED rather than finish out high school and just join the Army struck me as pretty dubious, however.

[Necromancer]

When it's the only way you have out of poverty, and it requires you to put your life and civil rights on the line (courts have long held a much higher bar for proving civil rights abuses in the military than in the general population), then no, I don't think it's that far off.

[Warriorbird]

When it's the only way you have out of poverty

There are other ways. Not all of them legal, mind you, but there are very definitely other ways out of poverty.

I think the services have a worse civil rights record against women and homosexuals than racial minorities these days, to be honest. Wasn't always true, mind you.

[Unique]

Originally posted by Warriorbird

When it's the only way you have out of poverty

There are other ways. Not all of them legal, mind you, but there are very definitely other ways out of poverty.


Government subsidized loans for college being the best in my opinion.

Unique.