Reply #29: You get that straight from the Heritage Foundation?

[snooper2]

Here's probably one of the better write-up's I have read..

Will wait for you to post something "better"

01 November 2006
U.S. Military Demographics

Who is in the U.S. Military?

The enlisted ranks of the military have consistently been drawn from the “middle 50%” of people academically, predominantly male high school graduates, who are disproportionately Southern and/or rural. Very few enlisted soldiers ever go on to become officers. To crassly oversimply, this war is being fought mostly by men who are middle income rednecks and working to middle class blacks and Hispanics.

There are about 3,152,000 high school graduates each year.

About 85% of all active duty military troops are men. This Navy and Army are both close to this average, in the Marines 94% are men, in the Air Force about 80% are men. I use the 85% percentage below, although it somewhat overstates the number of enlisted women, while understating the number of women who are officers. In the Army, for example, 16.6% of officers are women, while 14.6% are enlisted; I don't know the percentages in the other services, but expect that they are similar. The officer rank boosts has a lot to do with medical and legal professionals who become military officers after obtaining their professional credentials.

About 103,000 men join the enlisted ranks of the military each year (based on double the number of E-1 ranked active duty military people, typically a 6 months stint time 85%). There are about 1,056,000 male high school graduates who aren’t in the top third of their graduating class each year (about a quarter of the cohort doesn't graduate, so the middle 50% is really the bottom two-thirds of high school graduates). Thus, the military successfully recruits about 10% of this demographic. It gets a much larger percentage of this demographic in the South (which has relatively low numbers of Asians and Hispanics, and relatively high numbers of blacks, compared to the national averages), around 20%, and a lower percentage elsewhere. Soldiers are also disproportionately rural in their origins.

Military recruitment, in other words, thrives in politically conservative areas, while it is relatively anemic in politically liberal areas. The officer's corp is overwhelmingly conservative with some estimates putting the percentage of commissioned officers who are Republicans at 90%. Enlisted soldiers are more politically balanced than the officers, but are still probably a little more conservative than the general public on most issues.


more....

http://washparkprophet.blogspot.com/2006/11/us-military-demographics.html