anyone know the demographics of our current troops

i was curious to the current demographics of our national troops

i see that some more of the recruiting is going toward "minorities" or basically those that would have the biggest incentive toward the funds that go along with being a soldier, keeping in mind you will probably be activated for a while and that you are able to stay alive

anyone have any numbers and percentage breakdown

causasion

mixed race

african american

mexican etc

sorry but i don't have numbers for racial mixtures, but i would bet that the majority are poor, regardless of race.

Originally posted by cpdaman

i was curious to the current demographics of our national troops

i see that some more of the recruiting is going toward "minorities" or basically those that would have the biggest incentive toward the funds that go along with being a soldier, keeping in mind you will probably be activated for a while and that you are able to stay alive

anyone have any numbers and percentage breakdown

causasion

mixed race

african american

mexican etc

Here's this data for 2003...

US Military Recruits by Race

This is a graphic from this page: Who Bears the Burden?

It's pretty interesting data. It shows that a lot of the info prevalent that low income minorities from the inner city are getting recruited is mostly false. Suburban and rural areas are overrepresented. And, while blacks have a slightly higher pecentage in the armed forces than in the general population. It's not a huge number. Whites are just about right. Asians are very underrepresented.

Edit: Here's the 2004 & 2005 data:
2004/2005 Demographics

[edit on 15-2-2007 by BlueTriangle]

Originally posted by Stewart Lewis
sorry but i don't have numbers for racial mixtures, but i would bet that the majority are poor, regardless of race.

All of the propoganda out there would make you think that, but that's dead wrong. The poor are the lowest percentage of recruits. A majority come from middle-class and above.

Blue Triangle, thanks for the correction. I guess i define 'poor' diffrently than the us gov.

Yes I also had the mistaken idea that most of our troops over in Iraq were minorities, if you believed Sen Rangle then all of them would be minorities.
However, after viewing many videos of our troops in action over at liveleak, nearly every one of them shown are Caucasian.
I do know that it seems that most of the marines or soldiers that lose their lives over there and are from Texas seem to be hispanic.

Not sure of the ethnic makeup. But, as far as demograhpics and statistics, troops operating in the war on terror, that is, in afghanistan and/or iraq, have a lower death rate than their civilian cohorts.

great info and nicely broken down

thanks blue triange