COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: Recruiting in Rural Areas
Youths in Rural U.S. Are Drawn To Military
Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post
November 4, 2005
As sustained combat in Iraq makes it harder than ever
to fill the ranks of the all-volunteer force, newly
released Pentagon demographic data show that the
military is leaning heavily for recruits on
economically depressed, rural areas where youths' need
for jobs may outweigh the risks of going to war.
More than 44 percent of U.S. military recruits come
from rural areas, Pentagon figures show. In contrast,
14 percent come from major cities. Youths living in the
most sparsely populated Zip codes are 22 percent more
likely to join the Army, with an opposite trend in
cities. Regionally, most enlistees come from the South
(40 percent) and West (24 percent).
Many of today's recruits are financially strapped, with
nearly half coming from lower-middle-class to poor
households, according to new Pentagon data based on Zip
codes and census estimates of mean household income.
Nearly two-thirds of Army recruits in 2004 came from
counties in which median household income is below the
U.S. median.
Such patterns are pronounced in such counties as
Martinsville, Va., that supply the greatest number of
enlistees in proportion to their youth populations. All
of the Army's top 20 counties for recruiting had
lower-than-national median incomes, 12 had higher
poverty rates, and 16 were non-metropolitan, according
to the National Priorities Project, a nonpartisan
research group that analyzed 2004 recruiting data by
Zip code.
"A lot of the high recruitment rates are in areas where
there is not as much economic opportunity for young
people," said Anita Dancs, research director for the
NPP, based in Northampton, Mass.
Senior Pentagon officials say the war has had a clear
impact on recruiting, with a shrinking pool of
candidates forcing the military to accept less
qualified enlistees -- and presumably many for whom
military service is a choice of last resort. In fiscal
2005, the Army took in its least qualified group of
recruits in a decade, as measured by educational level
and test results. The war is also attracting youths
driven by patriotism, including a growing fringe of the
upper class and wealthy, but military sociologists
believe that greater numbers of young people who would
have joined for economic reasons are being discouraged
by the prolonged combat.
The Pentagon Zip code data, applied for the first time
to 2004 recruiting results, underscores patterns
already suggested by anecdotal evidence, such as
analysis of the home towns of troops killed in Iraq.
Although still an approximation, the data offer a more
detailed portrait of the socioeconomic status of the
Americans most likely to serve today.
Tucked into the Piedmont foothills of southern
Virginia, where jobs in the local economy are scarce as
NASCAR fans are plentiful, Martinsville is typical of
the lower-income rural communities across the nation
that today constitute the U.S. military's richest
recruiting grounds.
Albert Deal, 25, had struggled for years to hold onto a
job in this rural Virginia community of rolling hills
and shuttered textile mills. So when the lanky high
school graduate got his latest pink slip, from a
modular-homes plant, he took a hard look at his life.
Then he picked up the phone and dialed the steadiest
employer he knew: the U.S. Army.
Two weeks later, on Oct. 27, Deal sat in his parents'
living room and signed one enlistment document after
another as his fiancee, Kimbery Easter, somberly looked
on.
"This is the police check," said Sgt 1st Class
Christopher A. Barber, a veteran Army recruiter,
leading Deal through the stack of paperwork. "This is
the sex-offender check . . ." Barber spoke in a
monotone, sounding like a tour guide who had memorized
every word.
Left adrift, young people such as Deal "are being
pushed out of their communities. They want to get away
from intolerable situations, and the military offers
them something different," said Morten G. Ender, a
sociologist at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
To be sure, some young people who need jobs or college
money also seek adventure and a chance to serve their
country. Others come from towns with large bases or
populations of veterans interwoven with a military
culture that helps keep enlistments high. And a rising
percentage of youth from wealthy areas is signing up,
presumably for patriotic reasons.
But nationwide, data point above all to places such as
Martinsville, where rural roads lined with pine and
poplar trees snake through lonely, desolate towns, as
the wellspring for the youth fighting America's wars.
"They are these untapped kids," Enders said "that
nobody found." A Dwindling Job Market
Barber palms the steering wheel of his gray Dodge
Stratus as he drives northwest into the steeply
undulating backcountry surrounding Martinsville, where
he commands a recruiting station.
Barber's territory spans 862 square miles in one of the
country's most productive recruiting regions. Roaming
in and out of cell-phone range through tiny towns,
Barber and his partner post Army brochures at
mom-and-pop groceries, work the crowd at NASCAR races
at the local track, and log more than 100 miles a day
meeting potential recruits.
In fiscal 2005, the Army's worst year for recruiting
since 1999, they signed up 94 percent of their target,
a relatively high number in one of the Army's top
recruiting regions.
"We were pretty much dead-on," said Barber of Miami,
attributing his success in part to the region's
shrinking job market and the inability of families to
afford college. Unemployment in Martinsville was 12.1
percent in 2004. Median income is $27,000, with a
poverty rate of 17.5 percent, 2000 census data show.
"The job market is dwindling, and it's hard for a young
man or woman to find something other than the fast-food
business," Barber says on the way to the one-story home
of Mike McNeely, Deal's stepfather.
Still, many young people such as Deal exhaust other
options before considering the Army, making today's
recruits older on average. "These kids have tested the
labor market and gone on to college but didn't perform
well," said Curtis Gilroy, director of accessions for
the Pentagon. From 2000 to 2004, the number of
teenagers joining the military dropped, while 20- to
25-year-olds rose from 31 to 36 percent.
As his fiancee stares impassively at a TV soap opera,
Deal cradles Kadence, her fussy 6-month-old daughter,
and explains how he turned to the Army after doors kept
slamming in his face.
"I tried anything and everything" to land a job, Deal
said, ticking off glass and furniture companies and a
local telemarketing firm. "No one ever called back."
Divorced and the father of a 3-year-old son, Deal
decided to call the recruiter because "it's a job to
do," he said. "It's something to make a life of."
Sitting in a kitchen decorated with religious
figurines, McNeely, 50, agrees. "You're not looking at
a lot around here in terms of a future," said McNeely,
who is disabled. He adds that the textile and furniture
factories where he once worked have vanished or
downsized.
But McNeely, Deal and Easter are uneasy over the
prospect that the job will lead to Iraq. "That bothers
me a lot," said McNeely, saying that his wife also
likes to have Deal "in hollerin' distance."
Kadence spits up, and Deal rushes to get a rag to wipe
off her mother's pants. Easter now supports Deal, after
being angry at first over his plans to join the Army.
Still, she hesitates to marry him before he leaves for
boot camp. Deal, who wants a job as a tank driver, says
he hopes he won't deploy.
"Believe me, I don't want to go over there." But, he
said, "that's the risk I take." At the 'Anchor' School
It's just after lunch at Magna Vista High School south
of Martinsville. Sgt. Michael Ricciardi strides through
the door and is ushered inside by a smiling woman
signing in visitors. He is soon joking with kids
heading to class, including several future soldiers.
"This is pretty much my 'anchor' school," said
Ricciardi, Barber's partner, who spends hours each week
handing out Frisbees and footballs in the hallways.
"They know me pretty well."
In contrast to some schools around the country that
limit access to recruiters, Magna Vista, where half of
students receive financial aid or free lunch, welcomes
them. School officials give recruiters a list of
seniors to contact, and encourage upperclassmen to take
a vocational test required by the military.
"We expose them to the fact that the military is
there," said guidance counselor Karen Cecil. "We're
setting the stage for [students] to know it's an
option" especially as a way to afford college, she
said.
Indeed, like many heavy recruiting areas, Martinsville
has more people seeking Army jobs than are qualified
for them. Army recruiters here turn away scores of
interested youths because they fail vocational tests,
physicals or legal background checks. To fill its ranks
nationwide, the Army in fiscal 2005 accepted its least
qualified pool in a decade -- falling below quota in
high school graduates (87 percent) and taking in more
youths scoring in the lowest category of aptitude test
(3.9 percent).
Support for military service among parents has dwindled
nationwide, but many parents here view it as an
opportunity, often phoning recruiters to urge them to
enlist their children.
Senior Miyana Gravely, 17, had long talks with her
mother before asking for approval to join the Army and
go to boot camp last summer. "You can do it. I don't
want you to grow up and say, 'Mama wouldn't let me,' "
Gravely recalls her mother telling her.
Gravely sees soldiering as a ticket to an active life
somewhere else. "I don't want to be one of the people
still sitting around Martinsville," she said, adding
she is contemplating airborne training and "wouldn't
mind" going to Iraq.
Being black and female, Gravely contradicts a national
decline over the past four years in the willingness of
both blacks and women to consider military service -- a
shift polls attribute to the U.S. anti-terrorism effort
and perceived discrimination. Blacks fell from 22.3
percent of Army recruits in fiscal 2001 to 14.5 percent
this year; Hispanics rose from 10.5 percent to 13.2
percent, and whites, from 60.2 percent to 66.9 percent.
Women dropped from 20 percent to 18 percent.
Gravely is active in the school's large Junior Reserve
Officers' Training Corps (JROTC), which draws 300 of
the 1,200 students each year and works closely with
recruiters. JROTC programs are prolific in Virginia and
across the rural South.
"The parents heavily support it. We've kept a lot of
kids from getting kicked out of school," said JROTC
instructor John Truini.
The program gives students military ranks and strips
them away if they break discipline. "I don't want to
say [we] control the kids, but we have influence over
them," Truini said.
Davey Brooks, 17, grew up on a small farm; he says
JROTC "changed everything about my life." He joined
JROTC in hopes the military could fulfill his dream of
learning to fly -- "like 'Top Gun,' " he says.
Now, Brooks is "battalion commander" and leader of a
nine-person Raider Team -- modeled after Army Rangers
-- which competes in military skills such as evacuating
casualties and orienteering. He plans a 20-year Army
career.
"I want to be in the Army and fly whatever I can get my
hands on," Brooks said. He is eager to go to Iraq as a
pilot, although he admits to one drawback: He's scared
of heights. "But when I'm up there," he predicts, "I'll
feel like I'm free and I'm in control of everything."
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