Quote Originally Posted by AmericanPride View Post
former_0302,

The ratio comes from Army Recruiting Command estimates while I used the census population data you provided. It's due to a combination of education, physical fitness, health, and moral/legal.
Right, the MCRC data is based on the same factors as far as I know. I saw the numbers in some brief I had to sit in during 2010/11-ish, but IIRC their recruitable number total across the US was over 10 mil. Again, it was for 17-24 year-olds.

Perhaps the Army uses different metrics, or maybe the method for counting has been updated.