Black enlistment in the U.S. Army plummeting

Perhaps the key reason the U.S. Army is failing to meet its recruiting goals nowadays is that enlistments of African-Americans have plummeted over the last four years.

In 2000, the last year the U.S. had a president most blacks could respect, we represented nearly a quarter of the Army’s recruits (despite being only 12% of the U.S. population). In the first four months of fiscal 2005, that proportion is down to just 14% of new recruits. The Army’s own internal polling shows that blacks are especially opposed to the U.S.’s role in the current conflict in Iraq, and are spectacularly unimpressed with the leadership of the current commander-in-chief. Furthermore, their polls show that their recruiting efforts are hampered by fears of combat-related injury or death.

While many of us may be inclined to say, "Duh, that’s part of being in the military," keep in mind that with the Iraq War, the "all-volunteer" (ie: post-Vietnam) U.S. Army is facing its greatest level of military casualties ever. Put another way: unless the government requires them to do so, blacks are particularly uninterested in risking themselves in this way, at this point in history, and especially for this president, in this war.

Continued at http://www.intelligencesquad.com/id111.html

We are not interested in fighting for that idiot.

At least some of us can see through the lies and hypocrisy

"I ain't got no quarrel with those Viet Cong.".

as I posted on LBN:

Females also are getting harder to recruit, with the share of females in Army recruiting classes falling for four years running, from 21.6 percent in 2001 to 19.2 percent last year. It has slipped still further this year to 17.1 percent.

"Over time, females are seeing less benefits to joining the Army and more barriers, particularly combat-related reasons," concluded another study done for the Army last spring by the market research firm Millward Brown.

Another study cited a survey that said 50 percent of youth rate the Army as their last choice for a career.

"There is a lot of work to be done, and it will take a lot of time to make major changes in the Army experience and the Army's image," that study concluded. "Risks of military service, and particularly the Army, are perceived to far outweigh the rewards for the vast majority of youth."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/08/national/main678742.shtml

I'm sure Young Republicans will fill the void - NOT

the draft for Young Republicans. Stupid f---ers would rather be cheerleading from the sidelines though, like their Dear Leader during his Andover and Yale days.

The Ancestors are whispering in their ears. Hell why free Iraq and Non Native Africans are stil not free here in the USA.}(

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Give him time. When he gets through destroying the educational system, the social security system (which pays a lot of benefits to children), the healthcare system, and we are all given the option of a lifetime at WalMart or only five tours of duty in Iraq he'll surely get recruitment up, just in time for five new oil wars.

African-Americans fighting for a nation that largely loathed and shunned them was an odd paradox. From the Civil War to Vietnam, they were greeted with the usual Bushevik/KKK horrors every time they thought that THIS time their service to the nation had gained them "equal status" as Frederick Douglass once said ("from the catridge box to the ballot box").

Now, of course, most African-Americans know the score, that Imperial Amerika values it's Black citizens even less than Free America did, and on their backs, as always has been, laid the yoke of Primary Vote Fraud by the Imperials.

However, the Busheviks are counting on the coming economic calamity they are engineering to bring these wayward Enemies of the State back ito the loving arms of the Imperial Amermacht.

Why should Blacks (or anybody) be forced to support something they disagree with?

With corporate america's increasingly sickening antics, peak oil, and many other irresponsible things, I see less that's worthy of fighting to protect.

Until corporate america stops the offshoring and selfish greed and thinks of ALL Americans once again by making this country prosperous again, there is no hope.

And if President Bush wants to engineer a world war, thinking that a war always equates with the economy improving (just like World War II, yeppers :eyes: ), he'll be in for a shock once he realizes that no rule has an exception. Except that rule, but that's another story.

If America was #1 on the healthcare list, education list, compassion list, energy usage list... I'd die for this country in a minute's notice. But I am only seeing New Gommorah being formed. And God destroyed that city because its inhabitants were greedy and cruel. Even if it was #3 on the list and was showing it was improving, damn right I'd die for what's right. But the system ain't right. In some waysi it's becoming the antithesis of its own Constitution. I really don't want to die to protect the corporate exec who just sent tens of thousands (or more!!) jobs overseas in the name of greed and exploitation. He's made enough off of the living. He'll have to pay to get people to die for him, and if you hadn't noticed, Veterans' bennies and pay isn't exactly spectacular anymore since ush whittled away at it in order to give the wealthy CEOs their 4 years' worth of big tax cuts.