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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: unclewest who wrote (104005)	3/11/2005 9:51:00 AM
From: Hoa Hao	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793838

strategypage.com ATTRITION: Whites Replacing Blacks in U.S. Army March 11, 2005: While the U.S. Army has managed to continue recruiting sufficient new troops since September 11, 2001, there has been a difference in who is joining. More whites, Hispanics and other minorities are joining, but fewer blacks. The war on terror, and especially the war in Iraq, has been unpopular in the Afro-American community. Traditionally, a disproportionate number of blacks have joined the army, mostly in non-combat units (about 85 percent of the jobs in the army are non-combat). Although blacks of military age comprise 14 percent of the population, 22.7 percent of army recruits were black in 2001. This went down to 19.9 percent in 2002, 16.4 percent in 2003 and has recently been 13.9 percent. Surveys indicate that fear of getting killed or wounded is also a factor, as potential recruits note that a large proportion of the casualties in Iraq are non-combat troops. So, despite an unemployment level twice that of whites, blacks have been avoiding the army. Recruiting has not been down in the navy and air force, but the army has always been the service of choice for African-Americans. The army was the first service to desegregate after World War II, and has always presented the fewest obstacles for able blacks seeking promotions and career advancement. March 9, 2005: For the first time in five years, the U.S. Army failed to meet its recruiting goals, falling 27 percent short in February, 2005. That means there were 2,000 fewer recruits than were needed. The army reserves failed to meet their recruiting goals for the second month in a row, coming up 330 recruits short. The current size of the active army is 512,000. The army has been anticipating this problem for over a year, and has been expanding the size of its recruiting force. In addition, more money has been devoted to advertising, and recruit standards have been lowered. While the war in Iraq is part of the problem, the major cause of the recruiting problems is economic growth. The last period when the army had recruiting problems was in the late 1990s, during the dot-com boom. The current boom has been more subtle, but employment has been increasing for 17 months straight. That’s the number the army recruiters have been looking at. Patriotism and a desire for adventure have made it easier to keep the combat units full, while the combat support jobs go begging. Thus the army always has the option of shifting more support jobs to civilians, if the recruiting continues to be a problem.