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Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2591
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 25, 2007 - 02:33 am: | 
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Iraq War Brings Drop in Black Enlistees
By SARAH ABRUZZESE
WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 — Joining the Reserve Officer Training Corps was once an attractive choice for people with few options growing up in impoverished, predominantly black East Baltimore. That has all changed, largely because of the war in Iraq.
“Now, it is like, no way,” said Cornelius McMurray, who does outreach with a local church and says the young black people he works with view life in Baltimore as enough of a war. “It is a continuous fight waking up and walking the streets every day.”
In the Bronx, Adeyefa Finch says he simply walks past the recruiters who, seeking out minority members along Fordham Road, make the case that the military can help with college financing and job placement after they serve. “I’m not really into going overseas with guns and fighting other people’s wars,” said Mr. Finch, 18, headed to college this fall to study accounting.
That kind of rejection of military service as an option of young blacks throughout the country has resulted in a sharp drop in black recruitment figures since the war began. Defense Department reports show that the share of blacks among active-duty recruits declined to 13 percent in 2006 from 20 percent in 2001, the last year before the invasion of Iraq began to seem inevitable.
And while blacks continue to account for a larger share of the existing troop level than their share of the general population, as has been the case throughout the 34 years of the all-volunteer force, that margin is shrinking.
The sharpest decline in black recruitment has been experienced by the Army, which has the most troops deployed in Iraq; black recruits dropped to 13 percent of the Army’s total in 2006 from 23 percent in 2001. In the Marines, with the second-largest force in Iraq, the share of black recruits decreased to 8 percent from 12 percent in the same period. There were also declines in the Navy and the Air Force, though not as great as those in the two other services.
The commander of the Army’s recruitment efforts, Maj. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick, himself a black graduate of West Point, said there were several reasons for the change, including a healthy job market competing for youths but also African-Americans’ disapproval of the war. General Bostick said parents and educators who had recommended the military in the past might be less inclined to do so today.
In a recent CBS News telephone poll, 83 percent of the blacks surveyed said the United States should have stayed out of Iraq; only 14 percent said it had done the right thing in taking military action. Whites, by contrast, were closely divided: 48 percent said military action had been right, and 46 percent said the United States should have stayed out. The poll was conducted Aug. 8-12 with 1,214 adults nationwide and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
The poll numbers show up in the daily hardships of recruiters trained by Sgt. First Class Abdul-Malik Muhammad, based in Birmingham, Ala. “With blacks, there is not really a great support for the war,” Sergeant Muhammad said, recalling one prospective recruit who was told by his parents that they would sever all ties with him if he enlisted.
There were few such warnings half a century ago, when, as a trailblazer in equal opportunity employment, the military offered a chance for education and training. “You could go right off the street and into the military and make something of yourself,” said Ronald Walters, director of the African American Leadership Institute at the University of Maryland.
One vocal opponent of the war, the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, senior pastor of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, said, “I still think that in many ways the armed forces is unfortunately one of the few viable options for young people growing up in inner cities who may lack resources for college and have few other opportunities for upward mobility.”
But for others, times have changed. Joining up is not even part of the discussion for high school students who attend Bethel A.M.E. Church in Baltimore, said the Rev. Dana Ashton, who works with young people. Students within her congregation go to college.
And Latoya Rawls of Clinton, Md., has decided against the military despite flirting with the idea for some time. Ms. Rawls, a college student who works at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, cites both the danger of serving in Iraq — a peril evident in the wounded soldiers she sees at the hospital — and what she deems the unjust nature of the war.
The severity of the decline has caused the Army to take a close look at how it recruits blacks, General Bostick said, resulting in new marketing campaigns and the use of soldiers who are returned to their home areas to recruit.
In addition, the military has started offering higher enlistment bonuses. The Army met its recruitment goal in July after failing to do so the previous two months, and part of the success has been attributed to a new “quick ship” bonus of $20,000 for those recruits who can report to basic training by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.
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Renata
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 2507
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 25, 2007 - 10:24 am: |
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Never even mind that they're not allowing the troops to get their normal breaks once they get there, and are even keeping some past their obligated enlistment against their will. Also, I've been reading that when a parent in the military is in danger of losing custody of a child to another parent, their military duty is held against them by the courts. The courts basically proceed with the case, and the military won't even allow the soldier any time to attend to the matter.
I love soldiers, but I hate that the government takes advantage of them the way they do. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 5138
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 25, 2007 - 10:31 am: |
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The treatment of the men and women serving in Iraq is appalling and nobody gives a damn.
When I hear it though I remember how the military overwhelmingly supported The Commander in Thief.
The nuts in the Whitehouse, the cowards in Congress and the chickenhawk public will not save the troops.
They will have to refuse orders to serve in Iraq en masse to get justice. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 9688
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 25, 2007 - 12:09 pm: |
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Forget joining the Army and ending up in Iraq. Blacks should "join the Navy and see the world"! |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2594
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 25, 2007 - 01:31 pm: |
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"The treatment of the men and women serving in Iraq is appalling and nobody gives a damn.
When I hear it though I remember how.........
They will have to refuse orders to serve in Iraq en masse to get justice."
Ummmm......Chris.....Errrrrr.....I hate to say it, but I think you just made a valid comment.
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Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2595
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 25, 2007 - 02:00 pm: |
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"Forget joining the Army and ending up in Iraq. Blacks should "join the Navy and see the world"!"
Well, not exactly Ms. Cynique. The head of the JCS asked the CNO, "What are you doing to fight the war on terror?" Besides providing transportation for the Marines to conflict areas, air ops, SEAL joint ops, providing corpsman for the Marines and patrolling the waters in the Gulf, not much else. The Army and Marines are taking the full blunt of the war casualties. Well, from now on, the Navy has to provide bodies for the Army. They don't care what your NEC is or what you do, they need warm bodies. By that I mean you could be an Electronics Tech, a Machinist Mate or a Yeoman at a shore duty training command. When the command gets a "we need X amount of bodies list", your name could be on that list and you will end up in Iraq or Afghanistan working with the Army cooks or supply or where ever they need a personnel. It doesn't matter. THEY NEED BODIES. You will be expected to do no less than a 12 month tour in Iraq or Afghanistan. End of subject.
Besides, the days of going on deployments and going from one port to another is over! It's not the same Navy anymore. Before, deployments were fun. You knew you could see ports like Hong Kong, Japan, Philippines, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, etc. And depending on the type of ship you were deploying with (cruiser, tender, LCC, etc), you could spend a lot of time in port doing your thing, traveling, sight seeing, shopping and all those graphic naughty sailor stories you heard about. Not any more. Those days are over. When they deploy now, in a battle group with a carrier, you can expect to go straight to the Persian Gulf and hang out until the end of the deployment. It sucks!! The intoxicating motto of "join the Navy and see the world", no longer applies. It's totally different now. It's no longer fun anymore. Seeing all those exotic countries on a deployment is a thing of the past. It has really, really changed.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 9695
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 25, 2007 - 03:12 pm: |
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Interesting, NTFS. I guess they replaced the lure of adventure with the bribery of sign-up and re-enlistment bonuses. And when all else fails, the the draft will take its toll. |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2596
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 27, 2007 - 02:15 pm: |
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"Interesting, NTFS. I guess they replaced the lure of adventure with the bribery of sign-up and re-enlistment bonuses."
Yep. depending on you MOS or NEC, they are offering some serious money for enlistment bonuses. Some as high as $60,000! You have to do what you have to do in order to maintain highly skilled and trained individuals. They have all always offered SBR's. But they have really ratcheted up the pay now.
"And when all else fails, the the draft will take its toll."
Not in your life time or mine. America is too soft for the draft. At one time, it was seen as a patriotic thing to do. Not any more. There is too much suspicion, contempt, rebellion and mistrust against undeclared wars. Although the majority of Americans (most Americans do not follow the San Francisco "I hate the military model") respect and revere our military service personnel, there is an subtle undercurrent against a draft. The baby boomer generation was the last group in which a draft could implemented. Contemporary American society does not have the stomach for a draft.
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Robynmarie
Veteran Poster
Username: Robynmarie
Post Number: 542
Registered: 04-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - 05:51 pm: |
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I can understand not wanting your kid to go to war, but "severing all ties" with your child because of it seems a little extreme. |
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