← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Walter Yannis
Thread ID: 17192 | Posts: 17 | Started: 2005-03-08
2005-03-08 19:31 | User Profile
[URL=http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=14&u=/ap/20050308/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/army_recruiting_slump_3]Army: Recruiting Young Blacks Tougher Now [/URL]
Tue Mar 8, 8:19 AM ET Top Stories - AP
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
WASHINGTON - Young blacks have grown markedly less willing to join the Army, citing fear of being sent to fight a war in Iraq (news - web sites) they don't believe in, according to unpublicized studies for the military that suggest the Army is entering a prolonged recruiting slump.
Fear of combat also is a leading reason fewer young women are choosing the Army, the studies say. Although female soldiers are barred by law from assignments in direct combat, they nonetheless have found themselves under attack by insurgents in Iraq, and 32 have died.
"More African Americans identify having to fight for a cause they don't support as a barrier to military service," concluded an August 2004 study for the Army. It also said attitudes toward the Army among all groups of American youth have grown more negative in recent years.
"In the past, barriers were about inconvenience or preference for another life choice," the study said. "Now they have switched to something quite different: fear of death or injury."
Statistically, the fear factor is about twice as strong among potential recruits as a whole as it was in 2000, the study said. That and other studies, all of which are posted on an obscure Defense Department Web site, cited the Iraq war as a major turnoff for many.
The Army has suffered more of the 1,500-plus U.S. deaths in Iraq than any other service, and thousands have been wounded. Some soldiers will serve their second tour in Iraq this year. While Army leaders say soldiers have shown a strong interest in re-enlisting, the strains of war seem to have become a barrier to first-time enlistees.
The Army's recruiting challenge is critically important not only to the long-term commitment in Iraq but also to the Army's goal of expanding by 30,000 soldiers. Through the first five months of the budget year which began last Oct. 1, the active Army is about 6 percent behind schedule to meet its 2005 recruiting goal.
Explaining the overall drop-off, Army officials cite an improving national economy that offers more career opportunities as well as concern about the war in Iraq.
Blacks make up about 23 percent of today's active-duty Army, but the share of blacks in the recruit classes of recent years dropped. From 22.7 percent at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the share slid to 19.9 percent in 2002; 16.4 percent in 2003 and 15.9 percent last year, according to figures provided by Army Recruiting Command spokesman Douglas Smith.
The slide has continued, dropping to 13.9 percent as of Feb. 9.
A July 2004 study of parents' influence on young people of recruiting age found that black parents have more say in their child's career decisions than is the case with white parents. Also, black parents trust the military less and have more moral objections to military service.
The Army isn't the only service having trouble finding recruits. The Marine Corps fell slightly short of its recruiting goal in January ââ¬â the first month that had happened in nearly a decade ââ¬â amid parents' concerns about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (news - web sites). However, the Marines remain on target to meet their full-year goal.
The Navy and Air Force have had no problems meeting their goals.
A separate study, done shortly after President Bush (news - web sites) declared major combat operations in Iraq had ended, concluded, "Combat is the number one reason why" blacks don't want to join the Army.
Smith, the Army Recruiting Command spokesman, said Monday that the current, reduced level of black recruits is closer to the percentage of young blacks in the eligible population. "Our strategy of being representative of America is working," he said.
As recently as 2001, before the global war on terrorism, young people tended to think of military service as less risky. The 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites) had ended after only 100 hours of ground combat with relatively few deaths, and no American soldier died in the 1999 air war over Kosovo.
Females also are getting harder to recruit, with the share of females in Army recruiting classes falling for four years running, from 21.6 percent in 2001 to 19.2 percent last year. It has slipped still further this year to 17.1 percent.
"Over time, females are seeing less benefits to joining the Army and more barriers, particularly combat-related reasons," concluded another study done for the Army last spring by the market research firm Millward Brown.
Another study cited a survey that said 50 percent of youth rate the Army as their last choice for a career.
"There is a lot of work to be done, and it will take a lot of time to make major changes in the Army experience and the Army's image," that study concluded. "Risks of military service, and particularly the Army, are perceived to far outweigh the rewards for the vast majority of youth."
2005-03-08 23:21 | User Profile
And the overwhelming majority of blacks said Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. The majority of blacks are against the war in Iraq and believe Bush lied about WMD to start the war. You ever talk to blacks about this Iraq war being for Israel? They all seem to know the score. Meanwhile I bang my head against the wall after talking to whiteys ("Your against the war in Iraq? After they bombed the twin towers and the Pentagon?? Well, I think we should just nuke all of them!")
I'm starting to think blacks might just be smarter than whiteys.:afro:
2005-03-08 23:32 | User Profile
Join the army and get a boom box and as a bonus they will get also a rap CD.
2005-03-08 23:49 | User Profile
Walter Yannis,
[QUOTE]the share of blacks in the recruit classes of recent years dropped. From 22.7 percent at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, ... has continued, dropping to 13.9 percent as of Feb. 9.[/QUOTE]
And that is when most blacks are not on the front. They sitting a the supply depot getting drunk and goffing off.
Well this is good news: [QUOTE]Females also are getting harder to recruit, with the share of females in Army recruiting classes falling for four years running, from 21.6 percent in 2001 to 19.2 percent last year. It has slipped still further this year to 17.1 percent.[/QUOTE]
2005-03-09 00:53 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Jack Cassidy]And the overwhelming majority of blacks said Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. The majority of blacks are against the war in Iraq and believe Bush lied about WMD to start the war. You ever talk to blacks about this Iraq war being for Israel? They all seem to know the score. Meanwhile I bang my head against the wall after talking to whiteys ("Your against the war in Iraq? After they bombed the twin towers and the Pentagon?? Well, I think we should just nuke all of them!")
I'm starting to think blacks might just be smarter than whiteys.:afro:[/QUOTE]
This is less a case of blacks having some special knowledge of the U.S. political elites than simple shirking work. If your theory were correct, I would expect to see proportional representation of blacks in combat related fields in peace time. That is clearly not the case.
It's long been known that blacks are heavily drawn toward certain career fields in the military. When blacks join, they strongly prefer military areas that are unrelated to combat and are undemanding, physically and intellectually, like personel, supply, medical technicians and light maintanence. Very few blacks are infantrymen or tankers and blacks are virtually nonexistent in fields which have high test scores as a prerequisite like signals and intelligence.
The military is engaged in a conflict in which the rear support areas aren't particularly safe or comfortable. Blacks certainly won't join to go there. Most people could have predicted this years ago.
2005-03-09 02:06 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Oklahomaman]This is less a case of blacks having some special knowledge of the U.S. political elites than simple shirking work. If your theory were correct, I would expect to see proportional representation of blacks in combat related fields in peace time. That is clearly not the case.
It's long been known that blacks are heavily drawn toward certain career fields in the military. When blacks join, they strongly prefer military areas that are unrelated to combat and are undemanding, physically and intellectually, like personel, supply, medical technicians and light maintanence. Very few blacks are infantrymen or tankers and blacks are virtually nonexistent in fields which have high test scores as a prerequisite like signals and intelligence.
The military is engaged in a conflict in which the rear support areas aren't particularly safe or comfortable. Blacks certainly won't join to go there. Most people could have predicted this years ago.[/QUOTE]The sounds smarter to me. You certainly can't say blacks lack patriotism when the recent war Bush started, and the ones he's pushing for, have nothing to do with America and its security. Charley Reese's "Just Say 'No' to Military Recruiters" said it all for me.
2005-03-09 06:36 | User Profile
Sign up for the duration of the peace and no longer!
Amen to that.
Jack - right you are. Negras know the score much better than whites. They're very racially aware, unlike us. Ygg talks about this racial weakness of ours - our need to explain simple phenomena with outrageously complex theories. The Jewish agenda couldn't be more obvious, but whites in their mass prefer wild theories about the Rapture or the Communist Conspiracy and Water Flouridation. Intelligence is a two-edged sword. It gives us great power over the environment, but also curiously leaves us open to all sorts of simply bizarre ideologies hawked by the come-lately carpetbagger de jure.
2005-03-09 07:29 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Jack Cassidy]I'm starting to think blacks might just be smarter than whiteys.:afro:[/QUOTE]Yeah, its says some pretty sorry things about whites doesn't it?
Although actually recruiting is down among whites too, just not as much. Generally its just though that everybody in this country has just been sold on this war as the patriotic, Republican thing to do. Whites by it (patriotism and Republicanism), blacks don't.
Very few, though I'm sure some, really understand how [B]opposing [/B] the war is the patriotic thing to do.
In any event, a 6% recruiting shortfall is significant. Its the one thing that might put real pressure to shorten the war on the Bushies and the Army. Although the neocons would rather the Army and the nation be utterly destroyed than give up on the war.
2005-03-09 14:26 | User Profile
[I]Not to worry, Max Boot has the solution here:[/I]
It is hard to pick up a newspaper these days without reading about Army and Marine Corps recruiting and retention woes. Nonstop deployments and the danger faced by troops in Iraq are making it hard for both services to fill their ranks. The same goes for the National Guard and Reserves. (The Navy and Air Force, which are much less in harm's way, have no such difficulty.)
Just to stay at their present sizes, the Army and Marines are shoveling money into more advertising, extra recruiters and bigger enlistment bonuses. And yet it's clear to everyone (except, that is, President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld) that the U.S. military is far too small to handle all the missions thrown its way. We need to not only maintain the current ranks but also to expand them in order to recover from a 1990s downsizing in which the Army lost 300,000 soldiers.
Some experts are already starting to wonder whether the war on terrorism might break the all-volunteer military. But because reinstating the draft isn't a serious option (the House defeated a symbolic draft bill last year, 402 to 2), some outside-the-box thinking is needed to fill up the ranks. In this regard, I note that there is a pretty big pool of manpower that's not being tapped: everyone on the planet who is not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
Since 9/11, Bush has expedited the naturalization process for soldiers. But to enlist, the Pentagon requires either proof of citizenship or a green card. Out of an active-duty force of about 1.4 million, only 108,803 are foreign-born (7%) and 30,541 are noncitizens (2%).
This is an anomaly by historical standards: In the 19th century, when the foreign-born population of the United States was much higher, so was the percentage of foreigners serving in the military. During the Civil War, at least 20% of Union soldiers were immigrants, and many of them had just stepped off the boat before donning a blue uniform. There were even entire units, like the 15th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry (the Scandinavian Regiment) and Gen. Louis Blenker's German Division, where English was hardly spoken.
The military would do well today to open its ranks not only to legal immigrants but also to illegal ones and, as important, to untold numbers of young men and women who are not here now but would like to come. No doubt many would be willing to serve for some set period in return for one of the world's most precious commodities ââ¬â U.S. citizenship. Open up recruiting stations from Budapest to Bangkok, Cape Town to Cairo, Montreal to Mexico City. Some might deride those who sign up as mercenaries, but these troops would have significantly different motives than the usual soldier of fortune.
The simplest thing to do would be to sign up foreigners for the regular U.S. military, but it would also make sense to create a unit whose enlisted ranks would be composed entirely of non-Americans, led by U.S. officers and NCOs.
Call it the Freedom Legion. As its name implies, this unit would be modeled on the French Foreign Legion, except, again, U.S. citizenship would be part of the "pay." And rather than fighting for U.S. security writ small ââ¬â the way the Foreign Legion fights for the glory of France ââ¬â it would have as its mission defending and advancing freedom across the world. It would be, in effect, a multinational force under U.S. command ââ¬â but one that wouldn't require the permission of France, Germany or the United Nations to deploy.
The Freedom Legion would be the perfect unit to employ in places such as Darfur that are not critical security concerns but that cry out for more effective humanitarian intervention than any international organization could muster. U.S. politicians, so wary (and rightly so) of casualties among U.S. citizens, might take a more lenient attitude toward the employment of a force not made up of their constituents. An added benefit is that by recruiting foreigners, the U.S. military could address its most pressing strategic deficit in the war on terrorism ââ¬â lack of knowledge about other cultures. The most efficient way to expand the government's corps of Pashto or Arabic speakers isn't to send native-born Americans to language schools; it's to recruit native speakers of those languages.
Similar considerations early in the Cold War led Congress to pass the Lodge Act in 1950. This law allowed the Army Special Forces to recruit foreigners not living in the United States with the promise of citizenship after five years of service. More than 200 Eastern Europeans qualified as commandos before the Lodge Act expired in 1959. There's no reason why we couldn't recruit a fresh batch of foreigners today. It would certainly be easier than trying to sweet-talk more troops out of recalcitrant allies or, these days, recruiting at U.S. high schools.
2005-03-09 15:53 | User Profile
[QUOTE=EDUMAKATEDMOFO][I]Not to worry, Max Boot has the solution here:[/I]Similar considerations early in the Cold War led Congress to pass the Lodge Act in 1950. [B]This law allowed the Army Special Forces to recruit foreigners not living in the United States with the promise of citizenship after five years of service.[/B] More than 200 Eastern Europeans qualified as commandos before the Lodge Act expired in 1959. There's no reason why we couldn't recruit a fresh batch of foreigners today..... [/QUOTE]Good find MOFO. Yup, I knew that's what they were getting at. In fact they've gone a considerable ways there already.
In fact, that may be one of their main goals. Suppose push comes to shove her in America. Wouldn't it by nice if they have a "foreign legion" with no ethnic or cultural ties to Americans, especially European-Americans, with no qualms about firing against them?
Now of course Israel doesn't allow even citizen Arabs in [B]its [/B]Army, for obvious reasons. But as always "they're a special case".
2005-03-09 16:11 | User Profile
That was something that the Army Capt. just back from Iraq told me, we are now recruiting mercs who are now in Iraq.
I am not talking about the Americans ones but the new ones who are mostly from South America.
2005-03-09 19:06 | User Profile
[QUOTE]And the overwhelming majority of blacks said Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. The majority of blacks are against the war in Iraq and believe Bush lied about WMD to start the war. You ever talk to blacks about this Iraq war being for Israel? They all seem to know the score.[/QUOTE] But it's not intelligence; it's trust, or the blacks' lack of trust for what comes out of the mouth of Bush.
2005-03-10 21:03 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust] Now of course Israel doesn't allow even citizen Arabs in [B]its [/B]Army, for obvious reasons. But as always "they're a special case".[/QUOTE]
Minor point, but Arab Israelis serve in the army, they just aren't subject to conscription, as are Jews.
2005-03-10 21:43 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Jack Cassidy]And the overwhelming majority of blacks said Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. The majority of blacks are against the war in Iraq and believe Bush lied about WMD to start the war. You ever talk to blacks about this Iraq war being for Israel? They all seem to know the score. Meanwhile I bang my head against the wall after talking to whiteys ("Your against the war in Iraq? After they bombed the twin towers and the Pentagon?? Well, I think we should just nuke all of them!")
I'm starting to think blacks might just be smarter than whiteys.:afro:[/QUOTE]
I think that the lower recruitment of negroes has more to do with the fact that during actual warfare, being in the Army is not just "3 hots and a cot" but carries actual risk. Many coloreds saw the military as a viable alternative to welfare or a McDonald's job, but now that they're actually getting shot at, it no longer seems so lucrative. Let whitey die, in other words...
Some of the more politically active negroes may on average be more critical of a war against non-white Muslims (though Arabs despise negroes more than whites), but this doesn't really account for the overall trend.
2005-03-11 00:36 | User Profile
Blacks think Bush lied about Saddam having Weapons of Mass Destruction, not because blacks are smarter but because they're Democratics. And, it's harder to recruit blacks now because they think they'll actually have to work for that pay.
2005-03-11 05:32 | User Profile
[QUOTE=EDUMAKATEDMOFO]Minor point, but Arab Israelis serve in the army, they just aren't subject to conscription, as are Jews.[/QUOTE] They do? The subject of the treatment of actual Arabic citizens of Israel is subject to a great deal of public relations whitewashing by Israel, since it is so tied in with Israel's claim to be "the only democracy in the region", but I know in many ways it is decidedly inferior in many basic ways. I remember hearing a TV show where it specifically listed their Army status as being one of them.
I think you can be darn sure their position in the Army is decidely inferior, if there are significant numbers there at all. And that they don't do any of the heavy lifting, like participating in the Army's war against the infitada.
2005-03-11 06:07 | User Profile
[QUOTE=EDUMAKATEDMOFO]Minor point, but Arab Israelis serve in the army, they just aren't subject to conscription, as are Jews.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, that IDF officer who shot the Palestinian schoolgirl at a checkpoint a while back and then emptied his clip into her when she was on the ground was a Druze, IIRC. First time I'd ever heard Arab Israeli soldiers mentioned. Maybe they felt compelled to mention it to deflect some of the outrage away from Jewish Israelis.