Don't Tell Kerry: Recruits Are Richer And Smarter

My buddy Jim must have been on vacation lately. His regular link-loaded emails have dropped off, but this morning there was a timely one, to Who Are The Recruits?, a Heritage Foundation report on the demographics of the post-9/11 military.

It's not exactly the military how Kerry and his latte-mates on the Left see it:

• In summary ... wartime U.S. mil­itary enlistees are better educated, wealthier, and more rural on aver­age than their civilian peers.
  
  
• Our review of Pen­tagon enlistee data shows that the only group that is lowering its participation in the military is the poor.
  
  
• No evidence indicates exploitation of racial minorities (either by race or by race-weighted ZIP code areas).
  
  
• As conflict in Iraq continues, youth from wealthy areas continue to volunteer for duty despite increased risk. Addition­ally, over the course of these three recruit years, representation from the poorest quintile has decreased dramatically.
  
  
• Finally, the distri­bution of household income of recruits is noticeably higher than that of the entire youth population.

Oh, wait! Kerry was talking about education. "My bad!" I wrote in a particularly uneducated-sounding moment. Fortunately, the Heritage Foundation also addressed education of the new military force:

• In 2004, 92.1 percent of active-duty officer accessions held baccalaureate degrees or higher. From 2000 to 2005, between 10 percent and 17 percent of active-duty officer accessions held advanced degrees, and between 35 percent and 45 percent of the active-duty officer corps held advanced degrees. This indicates that officers continued their educa­tion during the course of their mili­tary service.

• Many enlisted personnel are drawn to the benefits offered by the armed forces that allow them to obtain funding for college. In recent years, incentives to join the military have increased, providing more of the enlisted recruits with additional resources to finance their education. Although only about 7 percent of recruits for 2003–2005 entered the military with some college experi­ence, over 11 percent of the 2004 active component enlisted force had some college experience.
  
  
• Additionally, in the most recent edition of Population Representation in the Military Services, the Department of Defense reported that the mean reading level of 2004 recruits is a full grade level higher than that of the comparable youth population.
  
  
• The policy regarding high school graduation status (or the equivalent) remains stringent across all four branches of the military. At least 90 per­cent of recruits must be high school diploma graduates (which does not include equivalency).

In 2004, the most recent year for which I could find stats, the 89.7 percent of US kids finished high school. Among men, who make up most military recruits, the number was 88.7 percent -- well below the military's "at least 90 percent."

Perhaps if Kerry had paid more attention in school, he would have learned the fundamentals of research and wouldn't be the biggoted loudmouth he is today.

Related Tags: Military, War on terror, Kerry, Politics