WHO FIGHTS FOR US – AT 10:01 A.M. ET:   Reader Joseph J. Gallick refers us to a terrific story about the makup of our armed forces.  The political left loves to portray the American military as made up of dregs who have to join because they have no other means of income.  Absolutely untrue.  The facts speak for themselves.  From The Wall Street Journal:

In 2008, using data provided by the Defense Department, the Heritage Foundation found that only 11% of enlisted military recruits in 2007 came from the poorest one-fifth, or quintile, of American neighborhoods (as of the 2000 Census), while 25% came from the wealthiest quintile. Heritage reported that "these trends are even more pronounced in the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, in which 40% of enrollees come from the wealthiest neighborhoods, a number that has increased substantially over the past four years."

Indeed, the Heritage report showed that "low-income families are underrepresented in the military and high-income families are overrepresented. Individuals from the bottom household income quintile make up 20.0 percent of Americans who are age 18-24 years old but only 10.6 percent of the 2006 recruits and 10.7 percent of the 2007 recruits. Individuals in the top two quintiles make up 40.0 percent of the population, but 49.3 percent of the recruits in both years."

What about the charge that our Army is disproportionately black? This too is false, as is clear from data for fiscal 2010 available on the Army's website: Whereas blacks comprise 17% of Americans ages 18-39 with high school degrees, they represent only a slightly larger proportion of enlisted soldiers, at 21%.

Meanwhile, whites were significantly overrepresented among enlisted Army personnel in 2010. While 58% of Americans 18-39 years old are white, 64% of the Army's enlisted men and women are. Whites are underrepresented to a minor degree in only one category, in which blacks are overrepresented: Army officers. While 74% of 25-54 year-olds with bachelor's degrees are white, 72% of Army officers are white. While 8% of 25-54 year-olds with B.A.s are black, 13% of Army officers are.

COMMENT:  Not quite the image the mainstream media presents.  The same slurs were used in Vietnam as part of the campaign to discredit our effort there.  (The main part of the campaign, waged by Walter Cronkite and others, was that the war was unwinnable.) 

I hope this new information is widely publicized, especially by Fox News and other outlets with a respect for the military.  I don't think the mainstream outlets will show much interest.

September 27, 2011