This article provides some interesting information:
1. Enlisted recruits and officers are more likely to come from middle- and upper-class neighborhoods. Can you imagine why? I certainly can.
2. Racial minorities are not "overrepresented" in the military.
3. In general, Democratic-voting states are "underrepresented" in the military while Republican-voting states are "overrepresented".
The charts at the link are fairly interesting.
2 comments:
Hi Darren,
Interesting topic! I'm very proud of my youngest son who is out at Pendelton now.
He who mapped out his HS coursework so that he could graduate early to enlist. He prepared himself by working out with the local Marines during the year prior to his Dec graduation and actually practiced a bit for the ASVAB. He did great and scored very high. He's definitely determined...
God Bless everyone who has chosen to serve our country in the military!
Lisa Jones
@proudmomom
One more interesting bit that I didn't see at this article is that the modern US military pretty much doesn't accept the bottom 1/3 of the population based on smarts [and if you don't have a high school diploma, the military requires that you be in the top 50% ...]. The upshot of this is that the average enlisted critter is smarter than the average US citizen (as well as more physically fit).
Which makes the John Kerry's, "if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq" quote even less connected with reality. Bozos and folks who can't hack it in high school have a much harder time getting in to the US military than the bright folks.
-Mark Roulo
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