The Truth About US Military Demographics

Many people today still retain the belief that the average soldier returning from either Iraq or Afghanistan is a poor, lower-class minority who had no other option than to enlist for an occupation. Although this may be the case for some, as one would presume about so diverse an institution, the specious myth is still heard ubiquitously to this day.

Even during the Vietnam War, the widely held assumptions of the aforementioned was untrue.

"88.4% of the men who actually served in Vietnam were Caucasian, 10.6%... were black, 1.0% belonged to other races", according to the Mobile Riverine Force Association.

Today, with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the gap between this illusion and the truth is even greater.

According to research conducted by The Heritage Foundation:

• poorer families are under-represented in the military today, while high-income ones are over-represented
• enilstees are much more likely to have a high school diploma than their peers
• white active-duty recruits compose a majority of the military
• Hispanics are under-represented among these new recruits
• 25% of enlistees in 2007 are from the wealthiest quin-tile, with only 11% of enlistees in 2007 coming from the poorest quin-tile
• 40% of Reserve Office Training Corps (ROTC) cadets come from the wealthiest neighborhoods
• US soldiers could have had plentiful career opportunities had they not joined the military -- suggesting motives other than money to join

Joseph Suh is a Contributing Writer for The Propagandist