"Don't Ask Don't Tell" and Obama Administration

[rah]

REALLY. I would never have guessed that for a second. When did that change occur?
I'm surprised.

[Patroklos]

Its pretty much always been that way in modern times. The middle class carries its own, while the lower classes are below.

The racial makeup will surprise you too. If I remember correclty blacks are under represented while whites, asians and hispanics (in particular) are over represented.

[KrazyHorse]

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/cda08-05.cfm

They have racial data, but it appears as though that data is contaminated by a large number of people in the general population who decline to specify their race, so it's difficult to do comparisons. There's no particular indication that any of the races are particularly over- or under-represented.

Also note that the income data is not for the individuals' families themselves, but rather the (median?) income of households in the neighbourhood they come from, perhaps because the recruits themselves are not asked to provide family income when joining up.

[Patroklos]

Thats exactly the source I was trying to remember, and obviously not doing a perfect job of it. Thanks, I'm sure I'd be challenged to produce that if you hadn't just posted it.

[KrazyHorse]

Note that this is data for new recruits. Poorer recruits may stay in the military longer (say, the richer recruits view the military as an adventure/a temporary duty while the poorer ones view it as a career) which may change the composition of the actual standing force relative to the composition of the recruiting class.

[KrazyHorse]

For Hispanics, there are two competing effects which might drive recruitment relative to non-Hispanics

1) More Hispanics may be unable to speak English at an acceptable level, or may be recent immigrants without a high school diploma, or may in fact be illegals, any of which would generally render them unfit for service

2) The Hispanic population is going to be generally more male and younger than the rest of the population. However, the data presented above is corrected for this demographic issue (presented relative to pop. of 18-24 males)

[Sprayber]

Isn't George Bush going to war?

George P Bush that is.

[Patroklos]

1) More Hispanics may be unable to speak English at an acceptable level, or may be recent immigrants without a high school diploma, or may in fact be illegals, any of which would generally render them unfit for service

2) The Hispanic population is going to be generally more male and younger than the rest of the population. However, the data presented above is corrected for this demographic issue (presented relative to pop. of 18-24 males)

They may get a boost too from the fact that many use the military as an avenue to citizenship, I served with a few non-citizens whose packages I helped push and it didn't take long at all (I assume it was less time than the regular route).

[KrazyHorse]

They generally need perm res. anyway, though, and that's the difficult step in attaining citizenship. Once you have that it's merely a waiting game (5 years) which is shortened for military personnel. It may be that they have perm. res. and want to bring family members in as quickly as possible (this plus voting and other civic rights/duties are the only real benefits to citizenship relative to perm. res. for most people).

There are a couple of programs for non perm. res. to join the US military, but they are extremely small and apply only to certain specialties.

[Patroklos]

Yes, now that you mention it the motivation for citizenship besides the more altruistic patriotic type stuff was getting their family over and/or being able to apply for officer programs. Most of the non-citizen sailors I have encoutered held degrees from universities in their own countries and we spent a lot of time getting them the equivalency degrees so they could put in OCS packages. I only know of one who actually succeeded in this, a guy from Colombia.

[zakubandit]

Citizenship through service has always been a major factor in the ethnics I have served with. For example, my 1SG was a Venezuelan who emigrated to America legally (self taught English by talking to himself in a mirror, or so the story was), his English was bad....like really bad, but he came to America legally and went military (as he was already a soldier in Venezuela, or so the story was and got citizenship. All legal.

Now do not for a second think the 2nd is racist, it is just a single self assessment from my experience.

The majority of the blacks that I served with were low middle to low income levels prior to the Army. Their persona's, were in most respects, that of the ghetto black type. My first roommate, a black kid with 4 months in longer than me, was a real dick head to everyone who wasn't ghetto like him. In my platoon we had him and another black kid, who was just...odd...he married a woman who was 15 years older than him, 2 kids (1 was almost in HS) and this kid was like 20 or something close to it. They were both **** bags. My roommate....I could tell you stories of how disgusting this guy was, it came to a point where me and my other roommate locked him out and wouldn't let him back into the room until our NCOs got there....this kid was nasty.

Moving on. Later in that same unit my platoon become majority Hispanic, minority black. The Hispanic at that point started speaking spanish at work all the time, much to the chagrin from the PL (white officer) to not do so. For me and the 4 other white Joes this started to get us very angry and we almost had to file a EO complaint. The Hispanics didn't work, I had 2 on my tank and neither worked and all 3 of us were the same rank...I had time in service. The 2 blacks were already lazy. When it came down to real work...we got yelled at a lot and the Hispanic Joes would blame myself and the other 2 PV2/3 white Joes. The E-4s got a pass, of course.

Now later on in my service I came to notice more and more that in combat service and support units is where you find the even more ghetto typed Hispanics and blacks. They are the truck drivers, the fuelers, the wrench turners, the greasers, etc. The whites, the asians, and the few other ethnic groups were always admin. I think I have met very few Hispanics and blacks in admin jobs that were not from middle or middle upper class.

My conclusion of the ethnic variety in the Army, from my experience, is that it depends highly on income level on what job you pick (not counting combat MOSs, us combat guys are from everything), and the persona that sticks with the individual depends on that person. If they keep ghetto, those are the bad apples, if they can adjust to be more civil they succeed and they are your big shots.

This is what I saw. There is an entire Army I never got to see, I didn't meet any Native Americans (supposedly they get promoted 110x times faster than every other race due to low numbers), I have been in an entierly black chain of command from PSG/PL's to XO, Top, and CO, I have had former convicted felons and ex gang members who managed to get in some how, I have worked with guys who turned out to be drug dealers while serving, a blackmailer (he got really screwed in the end, Hispanic guy) and con artist, and now that I think about it...ever lesbian and gay that I knew were minorities. The 4 gay gays were all black, didn't really notice that before, and the 4 of the 6 lesbians were Hispanic, the other 2 1 was an eskimo and 1 was redneck white.

OH YEA. Rah what I meant by experience isn't accepted here, is that every time I give these guys a fact filled experience from my time in the Army they say its a lie, false, wrong, etc.

[DaShi]

Don't be disrespectful to those soldiers.

[loinburger]

Citizenship through service has always been a major factor in the ethnics I have served with. For example, my 1SG was a Venezuelan who emigrated to America legally (self taught English by talking to himself in a mirror, or so the story was), his English was bad....like really bad, but he came to America legally and went military (as he was already a soldier in Venezuela, or so the story was and got citizenship. All legal.

Now do not for a second think the 2nd is racist, it is just a single self assessment from my experience.

The majority of the blacks that I served with were low middle to low income levels prior to the Army. Their persona's, were in most respects, that of the ghetto black type. My first roommate, a black kid with 4 months in longer than me, was a real dick head to everyone who wasn't ghetto like him. In my platoon we had him and another black kid, who was just...odd...he married a woman who was 15 years older than him, 2 kids (1 was almost in HS) and this kid was like 20 or something close to it. They were both **** bags. My roommate....I could tell you stories of how disgusting this guy was, it came to a point where me and my other roommate locked him out and wouldn't let him back into the room until our NCOs got there....this kid was nasty.

Moving on. Later in that same unit my platoon become majority Hispanic, minority black. The Hispanic at that point started speaking spanish at work all the time, much to the chagrin from the PL (white officer) to not do so. For me and the 4 other white Joes this started to get us very angry and we almost had to file a EO complaint. The Hispanics didn't work, I had 2 on my tank and neither worked and all 3 of us were the same rank...I had time in service. The 2 blacks were already lazy. When it came down to real work...we got yelled at a lot and the Hispanic Joes would blame myself and the other 2 PV2/3 white Joes. The E-4s got a pass, of course.

Now later on in my service I came to notice more and more that in combat service and support units is where you find the even more ghetto typed Hispanics and blacks. They are the truck drivers, the fuelers, the wrench turners, the greasers, etc. The whites, the asians, and the few other ethnic groups were always admin. I think I have met very few Hispanics and blacks in admin jobs that were not from middle or middle upper class.

My conclusion of the ethnic variety in the Army, from my experience, is that it depends highly on income level on what job you pick (not counting combat MOSs, us combat guys are from everything), and the persona that sticks with the individual depends on that person. If they keep ghetto, those are the bad apples, if they can adjust to be more civil they succeed and they are your big shots.

This is what I saw. There is an entire Army I never got to see, I didn't meet any Native Americans (supposedly they get promoted 110x times faster than every other race due to low numbers), I have been in an entierly black chain of command from PSG/PL's to XO, Top, and CO, I have had former convicted felons and ex gang members who managed to get in some how, I have worked with guys who turned out to be drug dealers while serving, a blackmailer (he got really screwed in the end, Hispanic guy) and con artist, and now that I think about it...ever lesbian and gay that I knew were minorities. The 4 gay gays were all black, didn't really notice that before, and the 4 of the 6 lesbians were Hispanic, the other 2 1 was an eskimo and 1 was redneck white.

OH YEA. Rah what I meant by experience isn't accepted here, is that every time I give these guys a fact filled experience from my time in the Army they say its a lie, false, wrong, etc.

You are unAmerican

[Guynemer]

Classic. Absolutely classic.

"Now, don't think I'm racist, but..." followed by a few paragraphs of racist stereotypes. Well played, ZakuDL.

[Ramo]

Citizenship through service has always been a major factor in the ethnics I have served with. For example, my 1SG was a Venezuelan who emigrated to America legally (self taught English by talking to himself in a mirror, or so the story was), his English was bad....like really bad, but he came to America legally and went military (as he was already a soldier in Venezuela, or so the story was and got citizenship. All legal.

Now do not for a second think the 2nd is racist, it is just a single self assessment from my experience.

The majority of the blacks that I served with were low middle to low income levels prior to the Army. Their persona's, were in most respects, that of the ghetto black type. My first roommate, a black kid with 4 months in longer than me, was a real dick head to everyone who wasn't ghetto like him. In my platoon we had him and another black kid, who was just...odd...he married a woman who was 15 years older than him, 2 kids (1 was almost in HS) and this kid was like 20 or something close to it. They were both **** bags. My roommate....I could tell you stories of how disgusting this guy was, it came to a point where me and my other roommate locked him out and wouldn't let him back into the room until our NCOs got there....this kid was nasty.

Moving on. Later in that same unit my platoon become majority Hispanic, minority black. The Hispanic at that point started speaking spanish at work all the time, much to the chagrin from the PL (white officer) to not do so. For me and the 4 other white Joes this started to get us very angry and we almost had to file a EO complaint. The Hispanics didn't work, I had 2 on my tank and neither worked and all 3 of us were the same rank...I had time in service. The 2 blacks were already lazy. When it came down to real work...we got yelled at a lot and the Hispanic Joes would blame myself and the other 2 PV2/3 white Joes. The E-4s got a pass, of course.

Now later on in my service I came to notice more and more that in combat service and support units is where you find the even more ghetto typed Hispanics and blacks. They are the truck drivers, the fuelers, the wrench turners, the greasers, etc. The whites, the asians, and the few other ethnic groups were always admin. I think I have met very few Hispanics and blacks in admin jobs that were not from middle or middle upper class.

My conclusion of the ethnic variety in the Army, from my experience, is that it depends highly on income level on what job you pick (not counting combat MOSs, us combat guys are from everything), and the persona that sticks with the individual depends on that person. If they keep ghetto, those are the bad apples, if they can adjust to be more civil they succeed and they are your big shots.

This is what I saw. There is an entire Army I never got to see, I didn't meet any Native Americans (supposedly they get promoted 110x times faster than every other race due to low numbers), I have been in an entierly black chain of command from PSG/PL's to XO, Top, and CO, I have had former convicted felons and ex gang members who managed to get in some how, I have worked with guys who turned out to be drug dealers while serving, a blackmailer (he got really screwed in the end, Hispanic guy) and con artist, and now that I think about it...ever lesbian and gay that I knew were minorities. The 4 gay gays were all black, didn't really notice that before, and the 4 of the 6 lesbians were Hispanic, the other 2 1 was an eskimo and 1 was redneck white.

OH YEA. Rah what I meant by experience isn't accepted here, is that every time I give these guys a fact filled experience from my time in the Army they say its a lie, false, wrong, etc.

Epic