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A few more reasons American Soldiers are reenlisting.
IRAQIS WILL ACTUALLY WALK UP TO OUR
AMERICAN HEROES,
LOOK THEM IN THE EYES, SHAKE THEIR HAND,
AND TELL THEM "THANK YOU". Often times with their children.
^what kind of a libertarian are you, that you think we should be policing the world whenever "real lives are on the line"??? it follows from your logic that we need to use our military to occupy and develop much of africa, asia, and central america. the onus is now on you to explain why we *shouldn't* occupy those other parts of the world where "real lives are on the line" despite its great expense to our country.
I am a different mold of Libertarian. I am a social Libertarain, but with my U.S. Military background as an Infantry Soldier, I have a different mind set than Ron Paul.
Noone fits the mold of any Party to the tee, but I identify more closely to the Libertarian Party.
Are you done getting personal?
I said let's go to Darfur. It's what our American Soldiers sign up to do. To fight evil and help the innocent.
I say let's stay in Iraq AND go to Darfur.
Do you think we should go to Darfur, but abandon Iraq? Does that make sense to you when people say that?
i shouldn't get personal, but i was truly perplexed as to why a libertarian holds those views.
i take a pragmatic perspective. with limited resources, we need to assess our capacity to have a successful positive outcome in a region relative to our resources. its effect on our relations with other countries (and on future terrorism) is another factor. i do think that dafur passes the test. i never thought iraq did.
the troops are great. their intentional acts are mostly great. they just shouldn't be in iraq.
According to the National Priorities Project data, 64 percent of all recruits were from counties with median household incomes below the US median. Median household income is that amount which divides the income distribution in the US into two equal groups, half having income above that amount and half having income below. All of the top 20 counties from the 14 highest recruitment states had a median household income below the national median household income. The majority of these counties had higher poverty rates as well as higher child poverty rates than the national average. The vast majority of the countries were non-metropolitan, and 11 of the 20 were considered completely rural.
.
The National Priorities Project is skewed and incorrect.
They ranked counties in order of their "recruit-to-population ratios",
but drew most of its conclusions fom an unrepresentative
sample of the top 20.
Four of the top 20 counties they looked at had just four enlistees.
"Adding up all the recruits from the report's
top 20 counties equals 275 human beings,
less than two-tenths of one percent of all the recruits that year. " Only two-tenths of 1 percentof all the recruits that year??!!
They based their demographics on only 275 recruits!
The Heritage Foundation is the most comprehensive study done. PERIOD. The Heritage Foundation analyzed the demographics of more than
500,000 recruits!!
The Heritage Foundation's analysis was based
on 173,321 recruits from 2003
172,533 recruits from 2004,
and 146,305 recruits from 2005!
This portion of the analysis excluded recruits
who listed home-of-record ZIP codes that
are non-Census ZCTAs or ZCTAs with no total population.
The analysis considers 173,321 recruits from 2003, 172,533 recruits from 2004,
and 146,305 recruits from 2005.
The only way to get a true assessment of the
demographic characteristics, of recruits, is by analyzing all of them.
The article was built around a study of enlistee
demographics by the National Priorities Project,
but Tyson even goes far beyond the data offered
in the National Priorities Project report
when she concluded that current enlistees
join the military service as "a choice of last resort."
The National Priorities Project report is, in fact,
typical of the faulty analysis that is used to malign
the quality and character of American soldiers.
The National Priorities Project ranked U.S. counties in order of their recruit-to-population ratios,
and drew most of its conclusions from an
unrepresentative sample of the top 20.
Statistically, this is biased towards extremely small counties, and sure enough, four of the top 20 counties they looked at had just four enlistees.
Adding up all the recruits from the report's top 20 counties
equals 275 human beings, less than two-tenths of one percent of all the recruits that year.
The truth is that the National Priorities Project, Congressman Rangel and newspaper pundits have not looked at the issue in anything more than the most superficial manner.
For example, what about the "bottom" counties?
More than eight-hundred 5-digit areas had zero recruits in both 1999 and 2003, and the average household income of these zip codes is lower than the national median. When ranked in terms of total population, the absolute bottom zip code is 02215, an urban neighborhood which abuts the "Harvard Bridge" in Boston and had zero recruits. Include the other 19 bottom zip codes, and the average household income is revealed to be $22,724.
In other words, the 20 largest U.S. neighborhoods that are home to lowest possible number of enlistees have median incomes that are half the national median.
Furthermore, it turns out that the 02215 zip code isn't Harvard University after all. The main zip code for the university, 02138, is a few miles away and actually has an enlistment rate of 0.08 percent. By comparison, the national average is 1.52 percent.
The highest rate is 78254, just outside San Antonio, Texas, where median income is $76,000.
The patriotism of San Antonia is well known,
but all these anecdotal statistics really show is t
he absurdity of the National Policy Project approach.
The only way to fully assess the demographic characteristics of recruits is by analyzing all of them.
Quote:
Finally, a common sense of disbelief stems from the dual observations that recruits come disproportionately from rural areas, and also disproportionately from richer areas.
Both points are true, and proportion is the key word.
Urban and suburban areas still provide four out of every five enlistees.
And while rural areas tend to be poorer, not all are.
The logic that "military equals disproportionately rural equals poor" is no better than the logic that "military equals disproportionately black equals poor."
Allegations that recruiters are disproportionately targeting blacks also don't hold water.
First, whites make up 77 percent of the nation's population
and 76 percent of its military volunteers.
More to the point, we explored the 100 three-digit ZIP code areas with the highest concentration of blacks, which range from 24 percent black to 69 percent.
These areas, which account for 14.6 percent of the adult population, produced 16.6 percent of recruits in 1999 and only 14.1 percent in 2003.
This hardly means that blacks aren't courageous. On the contrary, blacks serve in higher proportions in the military, but those who serve tend to be better educated and from wealthier neighborhoods than equivalent civilians.
Quote:
In fact, since the 9/11 attacks,
more volunteers have emerged
from the middle and upper classes and
fewer from the lowest-income groups.
The quality of the U.S. Military has never been higher.
i shouldn't get personal, but i was truly perplexed as to why a libertarian holds those views.
i take a pragmatic perspective. with limited resources, we need to assess our capacity to have a successful positive outcome in a region relative to our resources. its effect on our relations with other countries (and on future terrorism) is another factor. i do think that dafur passes the test. i never thought iraq did.
the troops are great. their intentional acts are mostly great. they just shouldn't be in iraq.
The fact that you believe the troops "shouldn't be there" is irrelevant now or why we went to Iraq.
They are there now. It's our responsibility to not abandon the Iraqi people. It's the right thing to do.
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