The shift in demographics for incoming recruits would be irrelevant to war planners, except it coincides with an overall shortfall of about 10,000 recruits for the Army in 2023.
  • rainbowtaint@lemm.ee
    11·
    1 year ago

    Historically, military service has been a family tradition in a lot of American households.

    You know who wasn’t left with a good feeling about the military? A shitload of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, who’s kids would normally would be a large chunk of the current crop of recruits.

    Do you think that maybe their parent’s bitterness and anger about their time in the military, or treatment afterwards, might have affected their kid’s decision to enlist?

    • tacosanonymous@lemm.ee
      131·
      1 year ago

      We have grown, exponentially, in information sharing in the last thirty years. Anyone even slightly savvy can see that the ideals of “protecting freedom” have been replaced by “killing to maintain corporate growth.” Who besides the least advantaged would be okay with that? Dying in needless conflicts is not something privileged people sign up for and it’s why recruiters target minorities.

  • OnlyTakesLsOP
    41·
    1 year ago

    TLDR: Army recruitment goals are 65,000 recruits for the year. They had a shortfall of 10,000 recruits, 15% short. Meanwhile, white people specifically aren’t signing up, only 44% of new recruits are white. For context, the US is 68% white.

    Of course there’s more than just racism, such as the obesity epidemic making many potential recruits not fit for service, the mental health epidemic doing the same, general apathy, etc etc. But the racism issue not to be overlooked, and it’s one of the few things that the army could try to target. The army can’t fix the obesity epidemic after all.

      • Bongo_Stryker@lemmy.ca
        31·
        1 year ago

        The army is very conservative when it comes to white troops. Sadly, this will impact our ability to go to war since white troops make up the combat arms and special forces

        Here is an interesting admission that conservatism favors white people over others for some things, despite wintermule’s pathological and repeated assertions that the progressives are the racist ones.

        Also of note is the use of the word “sadly”, which would seem to indicate the knowledge that conservatism is not best possible guiding philosophy for all situations.

  • PizzaMan@lemm.ee
    43·
    1 year ago

    To quote winter:

    Democrats Republicans can’t stop trying to put people into groups. My skin color is the least interesting thing about me.