COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Service: Gays/Lesbians
Ethnic makeup of military differs from U.S. society as a whole
Rick Maze, Army Times
September 23, 2005
A new congressional report says the military is not a mirror ofsociety.
There are proportionately more blacks and fewer Hispanics in the
military
than in the population as a whole, according to a report on
demographics of
the all-volunteer force, released Friday by the Government
Accountability
Office.
There are other differences, too. There are substantially fewer women
in
the military and proportionately fewer service members have attended
college than in the population as a whole.
The report was prepared at the request of Reps. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., and
Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., to try to determine if the military is becoming
more or less representative of the U.S. population over the past few
years.
Rangel is interested because he has called for a return to a military
draft, which he believes is necessary because the sacrifices of U.S.
military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are not being evenly
shared.
The report shows there are some significant differences in the makeup
of
the military and the civilian work force in the U.S.
• Whites are underrepresented in the military. The U.S. work force is
71
percent Caucasian — or other ethnic groups included as whites —
while the
military is 67 percent white.
• Blacks are overrepresented, comprising 17 percent of the military
and 11
percent of the civilian work force
• Hispanics are underrepresented, making up 9 percent of the military
and
11 percent of the work force.
• Women, not surprisingly, are also underrepresented, comprising just
16
percent of the military, although policies and laws restricting
assignment
possibilities for women are the chief reason, not other recruiting
factors.
• Deaths of U.S. troops in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring
Freedom
also have been disproportionate to ethnic makeup of the military, the
report states. Based on the 1,841 deaths and 12,658 wounded service
members
as of May 28, when the report was being prepared, 71 percent of the
dead
are classified as white, 9 percent as black and 10 percent as Hispanic.
Read the GAO report.
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