Quote Originally Posted by AmericanPride View Post

What does this mean? (1) The military does not accurately reflect the demographics of the American population from which it is drawn. If projections of ethnic group growth are accurate, and enlistment patterns remain the same, this difference will only increase. (2) Non-defense investments (i.e. education) is important in establishing the quality of recruits prior to them ever stepping into a recruiter's office. Today, only 1 in 4 candidates 17-29 are estimated to be eligible for enlistment. (3) This is the origin of the divergence thesis between the armed forces and the population - if the people are different, so are the values, and what are the consequences for the country and democratic governance if its military is not drawn from the same population as society at large?
In response to (1), the reason for this, IMO, is that there is a certain part of society which has a tradition of military service, and this sector continues to feed the beast. Is that happening at the expense of another sector of society which is clamoring to get in? If that is so, I haven't heard about it.

(2), okay, but that is a societal problem, not a military problem, and the military is not capable of fixing societal problems, either here or abroad...

(3), I sincerely hope that the values of the military are different than the society from which they're drawn. If I'm not mistaken, that's part of the whole "...special trust and confidence in the patriotism, valor, fidelity and abilities..." thing. If the values aren't different, we have a problem.