Comment on Army Sees Sharp Decline in White Recruits
wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 8 months agoNow if this is a topic that interest you. I’ll try to dig up the old study I read. It’s fascinating why groups join the military. Many whites join for “adventure” and that’s why they go into combat roles. Wealthy families are highly represented in combat arms and especially special forces.
Black people join for careers and job skills. They go to non-combat units. Who wants to do 20 years in infantry ?
Good study. Explains why you see the breakdown in certain mos classifications and why special forces is so white and wealthy.
Bongo_Stryker@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Hmm yes very interesting. I’d like to read that. It sounds almost as if you could make some careful inferences about US society as a whole based on observations of the military.
wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 8 months ago
I still owe you the study that I am referencing, I have to find it. This is a newer study that appears to be referencing it but I can’t get the search to work properly to find it. I will try tomorrow.
However, blacks are also more army to learn skills that are transferable to the civilian labor force. However, blacks are also more likely than whites to seek to stay in the army for a career because they feel the army is a more color-blind employer than they are likely to find in the civilian world. (Segal and Verdugo 1994, 628)
Barriers to Minority Participation in Special Operations Forces subseguently cites the results of the Youth Attitude Tracking Study (YATS) as evidence of relatively lower interest in combat related occupations by minorities.
apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA384108.pdf
The other article that I need to find talks about Special forces having a higher amount of rich, white kids seeking adventure. Combat arms are the same, a bunch of white kids wanting to blow things up for a few years.
Bongo_Stryker@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Intriguing stuff. I have not finished reading the whole thing but I feel like there could be some cultural, social and socioeconomic factors that are just kinda glossed over here. Seems like a simple question about a subject that I think is more complex than it initially appears.
wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Keep reading. They’re address many of those topics. One study isn’t going to cover everything but it’s an interesting read. It makes you reflect on your time in service and you’ll see why people made the decisions they did.