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Pissing in the cornflakes
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Minority War Death Myth?
A comment in the Iraqi murder thread about the 'minority' army made me recall a commentator saying that whites made up almost all of the combat troops (94-96% I don't recall). So I did a little research and found this.
Quote:
MINORITY WAR DEATHS: AN UGLY MYTH
By JAMES A. LACEY
New York Post
October 14, 2002 --
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/op...ists/59536.htm
AS the United States inches toward war, an ugly myth is getting another public airing: that minorities and the poor do most of the dying in combat.
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem) made the claim again just last week, saying he opposed the anti-Iraq resolution because the military is largely made up of black, Hispanic and poor whites who join for economic reasons.
This myth began in the Vietnam era. But it's a total fabrication. Minorities did not die in disproportionate numbers in Vietnam or in any conflict thereafter. And since 1966, the exact opposite has mainly been the case.
Blacks were 12.5 percent of the deaths in Vietnam, 13.1 percent of the U.S. population and almost 11 percent of our forces in Vietnam. Whites (including Hispanics) were 88.4 percent of those who served in Vietnam and 86.3 percent of those who died there.
The highest rate of black deaths in Vietnam was 16.3 percent (in 1966) - and almost all of those killed that year were volunteers for elite units, not reluctant draftees.
Later, as draftees made up a greater number of our front-line troops, blacks were less likely to find themselves in combat. The year-by-year figures for black casualties: 1965, 14.4 percent; 1966, 16.3 percent: 1967, 12.5 percent; 1968, 13.2 percent; 1969, 11.4 percent; 1970, 11.0 percent; 1971, 11.4 percent; 1972, 10.1 percent; 1973, 2.4 percent; 1974, 1.6 percent; 1975, 4.4 percent.
Seventy-five percent of all blacks who served in Vietnam volunteered to go. They went there to demonstrate their courage, often questioned in earlier conflicts, and to prove their patriotism. They were not herded out of the slums to die in a racist war, and it is an insult to these brave men to say otherwise.
During the Gulf War, blacks made up 12 percent of the U.S. population, 24.5 percent of military personnel deployed to the gulf, and 15 percent of the total casualties. Whites made up 66 percent of the U.S. forces in the theater, and 78 percent of the casualties.
Today, blacks make up 19.6 percent of the military and 26.7 percent of the Army - higher than their share of the general population. But they're unlikely to become casualties at anywhere near that rate. In fact, if the war is fought in the same manner as Afghanistan, any losses will be overwhelmingly Caucasian. Pilots are mostly whites, while blacks make up less than 4 percent of Special Forces units.
Even in a conventional assault, black casualties will very likely come at considerably less than their enlistment rate - because today's front-line combat force is made up mostly of whites. Why? Because whites tend to join up for adventure; blacks tend to enlist to gain job skills, so fewer wind up in combat battalions.
That still leaves open the question of poverty: Are today's enlistees forced to become soldiers due to economic hardship? Again, the evidence indicates this is just another myth.
Virtually every member of the armed forces has a high school diploma, compared to just 79 percent of the comparable youth population. Practically all new recruits fall in the top three intellect categories (as measured by the Armed Forces Qualification Test), versus 69 percent of their civilian counterparts. New soldiers read at a higher level than civilians of the same age, too.
A thorough study by Columbia Univerity's Sue Berryman concluded: Enlistees "do not come from the more marginal groups on any of four dimensions: family socioeconomic status, measured verbal and quantitative abilities, educational achievement and work orientation."
Overall, both the rich and the poor are somewhat underrepresented in the armed forces. Rather, the U.S. military very closely reflects the makeup of our large middle class.
It is time to end the lie that America is more willing to fight a war because the people who will do most of the dying are either minorities or the socio-economic dredges of our society.
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Very interesting to me, I wonder how our friends on the left would want to spin this? |