On Sat, Feb 24, 2007 at 01:52:56PM -0800, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
>
> I'm a very wildly-liberal guy and I'm all in favor of the draft. Why?
> couple of reasons. 1) it spreads the load throughout the population --
> barring corruption, the Bush twins have just as much chance as any
> body else of ending up in the military.
Wow. You are so off-base I hardly know where to begin. First of all,
in today's US military, the draft is bad. My father served in the Army
in Vietnam as a draftee. I've heard his stories. Go an speak with any
Vietnam vet about how poor morale was among draftees (even excepting the
domestic US politcal climate surrounding the war). Now, do you *really*
wan't people with crappy morale maintaining and responsible for
multi-*million* dollar systems? Because that is what today's tanks,
Bradley fighting vehicles, APCs and airplanes cost.
Not only that, but the training required for people today is far more
than it was in the past. This is true of civilians as well. We are a
much more technical society. Today, the B.S. is the new high school
diploma and the M.S. is the new B.S. Drafting high school graduates for
a 1 or two year stint makes practically no sense since many jobs in the
military now require six months or more of training.
However, I get it. You are a liberal and so you are all about "equity"
at gun point.
> 2) we end up with a true
> citizen's army. This means we get better diversity in the military and
> frankly, since most of the current US military comes from the largely
> uneducated, desperate for a job crowd (no offense intended, but it is
> reality -- look at recruiting numbers and lowering standards), getting
> a broader cross-section is good.
I'll pick one branch of the service: the US Air Force.
As far as diversity, please check these two sources:
Air Force Personnel Center [0]
US Census Bureau (page 3, PDF warning) [1]
Now, let's perform a little comparison. According to the US Census of
2000, here is what the Race and Ethnicity looks like:
RACE
Total population........................... 100.0
One race......................................... 97.6
White............................................. 75.1
Black or African American......................... 12.3
American Indian and Alaska Native................. 0.9
Asian............................................. 3.6
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander........ 0.1
Some other race................................... 5.5
Two or more races................................ 2.4
HISPANIC OR LATINO
Total population.............................. 100.0
Hispanic or Latino................................. 12.5
Not Hispanic or Latino............................. 87.5
The US Air Force demographics for 2006:
- 0.6 percent reported their race to be American Indian or Alaska Native
- 2.3 percent reported their race to be Asian
- 14.8 percent reported their race to be Black or African American
- 0.8 percent reported their race to be Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander
- 74.3 percent reported their race to be White
- 1.6 percent reported their race to be more than one of the categories
- 5.6 percent declined to report their race
Ethnicity
- 9 percent of airmen call themselves "Hispanic/Latino"
- 87.9 percent "not Hispanic/Latino"
- 3.1 percent declined to respond
Holy Crap! Quick, let's institute a draft so that the military can
become more diverse! Now, by my (admittedly poor) math, it looks like
minority groups have more representation than whites. Looks pretty
diverse to me.
OK. Now, let's tackle education. For that one, you will need to check
[2] (Excel spreadsheet warning).
According to the Census Bureau, the education level for 18-64 year old
*employed* persons, looks like this:
none-8th grade: 3.41%
9th-11th grade: 6.85%
H.S. grad: 30.08%
some college: 19.94%
associate's: 9.52%
bachelor's: 20.06%
master's: 7.19%
professional: 1.62%
doctorate: 1.33%
OK. Now, back to the Air Force:
- 49.9 percent of the officers have advanced or professional degrees
-- 39.9 percent have master's degrees, 8.7 percent have professional degrees and 1.3 percent have doctorate degrees
-- 23.4 percent of company grade officers have advanced degrees; 16.8 percent have master's degrees, 6.2 percent have professional degrees and 0.3 percent have doctorate degrees
-- 85 percent of field grade officers have advanced degrees; 70.4 percent have master's degrees, 12.1 percent have professional degrees and 2.6 percent have doctorate degrees
- 99.95 percent of the enlisted force have at least a high school education
-- 73.6 percent have some semester hours towards a college degree
-- 16.2 percent have an associate's degree or equivalent semester hours
-- 4.8 percent have a bachelor's degree
-- 0.7 percent have a master's degree
-- .01 percent have a professional or doctorate degree
So, officers all have college degrees (required) and they are way above
the rest of the population for Master's and professional degrees and
right on for doctorates. Enlisted personnel all have high school
diplomas (required) and are *way* above the general population in the
precentage who have some college or an associate's. Remember, enlisted
personnel are only required to have a high school diploma.
Now, the reason that recruiting numbers and standards are the way that
they are is because the military has to compete with the private sector
economy. Oh wait, our economy is going down the tubes. The military
should be turning people away as people graduate from high school and
college and join the military since they can't find *any other job* out
there. Ahh, but the economy is actually doing great and thus people are
not "forced" into the military by economics.
Please just admit that you have absolutely *no idea* what you are
talking about.
> 3) we end up with a true citizen's
> army which means more and more of the folks who end up in power have
> more at stake in a war situation -- either they've been there and
> understand or they know their kids might go.
>
Here is an idea. Why don't voters just make it a point to only elect
military vets or retirees to federal public office?
> I'm a pacifist and the best thing I can think of to promote peace is
> to make war hurt *everybody* and not just a certain slice of the
> population. Notice how few of the folks in the current war-hungy US
> administration actually have any military experience (drinking beer
> while hanging out in the guard stateside doesn't count).
>
Yes. Some of the people in the current and past war-hungry
administrations without military service:
Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, William Cohen, Sandy Berger,
Terry McAuliffe, Mary Bono, Steny Hoyer, Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman, Bill
Nelson, Harry Reid, Jay Rockefeller, John Edwards, Chuck Schumer, Dianne
Feinstein, and the list goes on. Ooh, all those nasty people who pushed
for war and yet have no military service.
Regards,
-Roberto
[0] http://ask.afpc.randolph.af.mil/PubAffairs/release/2007/1/Demographics.asp
[1] http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-1.pdf
[2] http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/education/cps2005/tab07-01.xls
--
Roberto C. Sanchez
http://people.connexer.com/~roberto
http://www.connexer.com
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