Who Are the Recruits? The Demographic Characteristics of U.S. Military Enlistment, 2003–2005

By Tim Kane, Ph.D.
The Heritage Foundation
Center for Data Analysis Report #06-09
October 27, 2006

A pillar of conventional wisdom about the U.S. military is that the quality of volunteers has been degraded after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Examples of the voices making this claim range from the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and New York Daily News [1] to Michael Moore’s pseudo-documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. Some insist that minorities and the underprivileged are over­represented in the military. Others accuse the U.S. Army of accepting unqualified enlistees in a futile attempt to meet its recruiting goals in the midst of an unpopular war.[2]

A report published by The Heritage Foundation in November 2005 examined the issue and could not substantiate any degradation in troop quality by comparing military enlistees in 1999 to those in 2003. It is possible that troop quality did not degrade until after the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003, when patriotism was high. A common assumption is that the Army experienced difficulty getting qualified enlistees in 2005 and was subse­quently forced to lower its standards. This report revisits the issue by examining the full recruiting classes for all branches of the U.S. military for every year from 2003 to 2005.

The current findings show that the demo­graphic characteristics of volunteers have contin­ued to show signs of higher, not lower, quality. Quality is a difficult concept to apply to soldiers, or to human beings in any context, and it should be understood here in context. Regardless of the standards used to screen applicants, the average quality of the people accepted into any organiza­tion can be assessed only by using measurable cri­teria, which surely fail to account for intangible characteristics. In the military, it is especially questionable to claim that measurable characteris­tics accurately reflect what really matters: cour­age, honor, integrity, loyalty, and leadership.

Those who have been so quick to suggest that today’s wartime recruits represent lesser quality, lower standards, or lower class should be expected make an airtight case. Instead, they have cited selective evidence, which is balanced by a much clearer set of evidence showing improving troop quality.

Indeed, in many criteria, each year shows advancement, not decline, in measurable qualities of new enlistees. For example, it is commonly claimed that the military relies on recruits from poorer neighborhoods because the wealthy will not risk death in war. This claim has been advanced without any rigorous evidence. Our review of Pen­tagon enlistee data shows that the only group that is lowering its participation in the military is the poor. The percentage of recruits from the poorest American neighborhoods (with one-fifth of the U.S. population) declined from 18 percent in 1999 to 14.6 percent in 2003, 14.1 percent in 2004, and 13.7 percent in 2005.

This report updates the previous Heritage Foun­dation report, with data on all U.S. recruits during 2004 and 2005. We introduce the term “wartime recruits” to identify volunteer enlistees in all branches during 2003, 2004, and 2005. Like the previous report,[3] the analysis considers the follow­ing characteristics:

--Household income,
--Level of education,
--Race/ethnicity, and
--Regional/rural origin.

Read it all:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/cda06-09.cfm

Democrats Won't Be Decisive

By Charles Krauthammer
The Washington Post
Friday, November 3, 2006; Page A21

According to the pollsters, pundits and pols -- Democratic and nervous Republican -- a great anti-Republican wave is a-coming. Well, let's assume major Democratic gains: 20 to 25 House seats and four to six Senate seats. The House goes Democratic for the first time in 12 years. The Senate probably stays Republican, but by such an excruciatingly small margin that there is no governing majority.

What to say about such a victory? Substantial, yes. Historic, no. Before proclaiming a landslide, one has to ask Henny Youngman's question: "Compared to what?" (His answer to: "How's your wife?") Since the end of World War II, the average loss for a second-term presidency in its sixth year has been 29 House seats and six Senate seats. If you go back to Franklin Roosevelt's second term, the House loss average jumps to 35. Thus a 25/6 House and Senate loss would be about (and slightly below) the historical average.

True, today there is far more -- and more effective -- gerrymandering as computer power and shamelessness both have grown exponentially. So fewer seats are competitive. But that is true only for the House. You cannot gerrymander the Senate. (Of course, the Democrats are trying even that, with their perennial push for two Senate seats for the 9 to 1 Democratic District of Columbia, which should instead exercise voting rights in the state of Maryland, to which it is geographically, economically and culturally contiguous.) In his sixth year, the now-sainted Ronald Reagan lost eight Senate seats that gave the chamber back to Democratic control. That election was swayed by no wars, no weekly casualty figures, no major scandals. The first inkling of the Iran-contra scandal broke on the morning after the election.

Nonetheless, even if just one chamber falls to the Democrats this time, it will be interpreted as a repudiation of two things: President Bush and Iraq. The Democrats have certainly nationalized the election by focusing on Bush and the war -- with an overwhelming number of Democratic campaign ads doing little else than showing their Republican opponent hugging or praising or merely shaking hands with the president.

Indeed, the anti-Bush feeling is so strong that Democrats -- ignoring the niceties of federalism and enjoying the benefits of guilt by association -- have been running ads linking Bush with Bob Ehrlich, the popular Republican incumbent in the Maryland gubernatorial race.

Yes, the campaign has been nationalized. But will the results be? In the House, a good five seats (Bob Ney, Tom DeLay, Don Sherwood, Mark Foley, Curt Weldon) are likely to be lost to scandals having nothing to do with Bush or Iraq. Of the losing Senate races, only Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania can be said to be dying for the sins of their party.

The other races, if lost, will be lost largely for local reasons. In Ohio, the state is rocked by an enormous Republican scandal at the gubernatorial level that is taking the whole party down with it, Sen. Mike DeWine included. In Montana, Conrad Burns is in trouble because of his association with Jack Abramoff, not George Bush.

In Virginia, a state that should not even be in play, George Allen has run the worst campaign in living memory, stumbling onto one ethnic land mine after another -- "macaca," the Yiddish mama, N-word allegations. And in New Jersey, the one Democratic seat that could conceivably go the other way and save Senate control for the Republicans, the drag on Sen. Bob Menendez is the very nonnational issue of official corruption.

So when the results come in and the Democrats begin to crow, remember this: By historical standards, this is the American people's usual response to entrenched power -- a bracing and chastening contempt. Sixth-year presidents nearly always bring their parties down. (Republican overreaching on the Monica Lewinsky scandal made Bill Clinton's sixth year an exception.)

Moreover, this year, the out-of-the-blue Foley scandal interrupted whatever national momentum the Republicans had gained after successfully passing legislation on terrorist interrogation and detention, and thus refocusing attention on their strongest suit, the war on terrorism.

The election will be a referendum of sorts on Iraq. But it will be registering nothing more than uneasiness and discontent. Had the Democrats offered a coherent alternative to the current policy, one could draw lessons as to what course the country should take. But if either friends or enemies interpret the results as a mandate for giving up, they will be mistaken.

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