The newsapers are talking about the new study saying only 1 in 4 youths is eligible to enlist in the military. Of course, the study doesn't break it down by race, but the information is readily available.
A 2007 Rand Corporation report prepared the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military Enlistment of Hispanic Youth: Obstacles and Opportunities, has a lot of interesting information (although nothing, so far as I can tell, on whether devout Muslim majors are likely to shoot up Fort Hood):
However, all else being equal, minorities are more likely to re-up in the military. So, the report goes on to discuss lowering enlistment standards for minorities. I didn't see any discussion, however, of whether it's better to, say, have a 120 IQ Explosive Ordinance Disposal tech who doesn't re-up after his initial term because he wants to get a degree in a mechanical engineering than one who doesn't have that opportunity.
By the way, according to Table 2.10, the maximum height for the Navy is 6'6" (low overhead on ships), so retired NBA star David Robinson, who entered the Naval Academy at 6'5" and graduated at 7'1" got special negative treatment by being ordered to serve two years as an officer. Anybody who wasn't a famous basketball player who grew to 7" over the limit would have been given an honorable discharge.
Lots more interesting stuff in this 224 page report that you won't read about in the newspapers.
A 2007 Rand Corporation report prepared the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military Enlistment of Hispanic Youth: Obstacles and Opportunities, has a lot of interesting information (although nothing, so far as I can tell, on whether devout Muslim majors are likely to shoot up Fort Hood):
Hispanics are underrepresented among military recruits. In 2007, Hispanics made up 17.0 percent of the general population (ages 18 to 40) but only 11.4 percent of Army enlistment contracts and 15 percent of Navy enlistment contracts. While the trend is upward (in 1994, 6.6 percent of Army contracts and 8.9 percent of Navy contracts were Hispanic), Hispanics are still underrepresented.It looks like, judging from the graph, that for the hardest service to enlist in, the Air Force, only about 33% of young whites, 16% of blacks and 21% of Hispanics are good enough based on having a high school diploma, having an IQ of at least 92, not being fat, not having dependents, not having convictions, and not being on drugs. (Figure S.1)
Social representation within the armed forces is an ongoing concern of policymakers. Indeed, each year, the Department of Defense is required by Congress to publish statistics on the social representation of the armed forces in terms of such characteristics as race, ethnicity, marital status, and age. An implicit goal is that diversity in the armed forces should approximate diversity in the general population. Furthermore, recruiting challenges in meeting enlistment goals mean that the services need to understand the factors affecting the supply of key demographic groups, including Hispanics. ...
Analysis of the NLSY data reveals that a relatively small percentage of youth, regardless of race or ethnicity, would qualify for military enlistment. Figures S.1 and S.2 show the cumulative effect of key enlistment standards in the areas of education (high school diploma or General Education Degree), aptitude (Armed Forces Qualification Test score, [AFQT]), weight, number of dependents, convictions, and drug-related offenses. Results are shown by race/ ethnicity for males and females, respectively, by service. Only 46 percent of white males, 32 percent of black males, and 35 percent of Hispanic males would be eligible to enlist in the Marine Corps, the service with the cumulatively least stringent enlistment standards. For females, the corresponding figures are even lower: 35 percent for white females, 22 percent for black females, and 24 percent for Hispanic females.
We found that the major characteristics that disproportionately disqualify Hispanic youth are lack of a high school diploma, lower AFQT scores, and being overweight. ...In general, Hispanics seem pretty healthy, other than weight-related problems like diabetes. Their infant mortality rate is quite low, for example.
Though important, education is not the only major disqualifying characteristic of Hispanic youth. Hispanics who are high school graduates often fail to meet other enlistment standards. The services require that potential recruits take the AFQT. Based on their test results, potential recruits are placed in one of five categories (Category I is the highest). The services strongly prefer recruits whose score places them in Category IIIB or higher. The Department of Defense (DoD) restricts the annual accession of those in Category IV (the next-to-lowest category) to 4 percent of the total, and prohibits all recruiting from Category V (the lowest category).
Only 36 percent of young Hispanic high school graduates would score in AFQT Category IIIB or above, compared with 68 percent of white high school graduates. A key implication of this result is that increasing the high school graduation rate among Hispanic youth may not lead to comparable increases in enlistment eligibility. ...
Comparing Hispanics with other groups, we see that weight is another important disqualifying characteristic. Hispanics are considerably heavier than others: on average, Hispanic males weigh almost ten pounds more than white males. Seventy-nine to 91 percent of white males meet the service weight standards (weight standards vary by service), compared with only 71 to 88 percent of Hispanic males. Among females, the percentage who meet the weight standards is even lower; 63 to 82 percent of white females meet the standards, compared with only 49 to 71 percent of Hispanic females.
Our research shows that Hispanics have a lower prevalence of disqualifying major and minor conditions than whites. That is, except for weight, Hispanics tend to be healthier than whites. Research suggests that better-than-expected health in the Hispanic population may be due to the large proportion of immigrants; immigrants in general, regardless of ethnicity, tend to be healthier than the native-born U.S. population.
However, Hispanics are more likely to be disqualified because of weight. On balance, taking all three health standards together (weight, major conditions, and minor conditions) Hispanic males are disqualified at about the same rate as whites. Hispanic females are substantially more likely to be overweight than white females, and more likely to be disqualified. Our analysis indicated that number of dependents is another disqualifying characteristic for Hispanics. Though not as important as weight, education, or AFQT, it is a significant factor, especially for females. Twenty percent of young Hispanics (ages 17 to 21) have children, compared with only 9 percent of whites. ...Here's my adaptation of Table 6.1, which is based not on enlistment applicants but on a nationally representative sample, the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997, the successor to NLSY79 used in The Bell Curve:
Recruiting more intensively from the pool of qualified Hispanics will be challenging. Most likely, increasing representation among the Hispanic population will involve enlisting more marginal recruits. The services already have programs that seek to identify the best of these marginal recruits or to improve the AFQT, weight, or educational outcomes of those recruits.
| White | Black | Hispanic | |
| Desirable: HS Grad & IQ >= 106 | 43% | 11% | 20% |
| Okay: HS Grad & IQ >92 but <106> | 30% | 25% | 27% |
| Ineligible: Dropout &/or IQ <= 92 | 28% | 65% | 53% |
However, all else being equal, minorities are more likely to re-up in the military. So, the report goes on to discuss lowering enlistment standards for minorities. I didn't see any discussion, however, of whether it's better to, say, have a 120 IQ Explosive Ordinance Disposal tech who doesn't re-up after his initial term because he wants to get a degree in a mechanical engineering than one who doesn't have that opportunity.
By the way, according to Table 2.10, the maximum height for the Navy is 6'6" (low overhead on ships), so retired NBA star David Robinson, who entered the Naval Academy at 6'5" and graduated at 7'1" got special negative treatment by being ordered to serve two years as an officer. Anybody who wasn't a famous basketball player who grew to 7" over the limit would have been given an honorable discharge.
Lots more interesting stuff in this 224 page report that you won't read about in the newspapers.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
An implicit goal is that diversity in the armed forces should approximate diversity in the general population.
ReplyDeletePress gangs are a tried and true method.
"Anybody who wasn't a famous basketball player who grew to 7" over the limit would have been given an honorable discharge."
ReplyDeleteA Lieutenant Commander who served under my functional authority several years back was a 6' 10" Naval Academy grad. He, too, had been an athletic recruit who had grown. Unlike ENS Robinson, he chose to make the Navy a career, and he was not forced out due to his height.
You actually believe that David Robinson was only 6'5" when he enrolled?
ReplyDeleteThis was during the last time that the military acadamies were trying to be competitive -- it wasn't long after Napoleon McCallum was allowed to play for the Raiders.
I wonder how many kids can't get in because they are, or have been on, ADD pills and/or antidepressants.
ReplyDelete"However, all else being equal, minorities are more likely to re-up in the military."
ReplyDeleteMaybe edit to say NAM.
I wonder how many kids can't get in because they are, or have been on, ADD pills and/or antidepressants.
ReplyDeleteI was kept out of the Army for being on Prozac. This was back in the time when Eli Lilly was facing lawsuits from ambulance chasers over allegations that Prozac caused people to turn violent. Other than that I had no surgeries, was in great shape, and scored 99th percentile on the ASVAB. I suspect there are a lot of good kids being kept out of the military for minor medical conditions in favor of barely literate GEDs.
From the New York Times on the terrorism at Ft Hood:
ReplyDeleteFox News quoted a retired Army colonel, Terry Lee, as saying that Major Hasan, with whom he worked, had voiced hope that President Obama would pull American troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, had argued with military colleagues who supported the wars and had tried to prevent his own deployment.
Nope, it had nothing to do with Islam. Nothing at all.
OTOH, Rachel Maddow might just have had her Bill Maher "we're the cowards" moment. She turned the issue into a problem of "murder in the military." Yes, it's the military that causes them to be violent, not their religion!
The military should focus on overweight, but smart recruits. Feed the recruit a low carb diet in boot camp where it will be impossible for the recruit to eat carbs. At the end of six months, the recruit should make weight.
ReplyDeletePills -- common to get a waiver
ReplyDeleteWeight -- they have fat camp
The overall numbers are not good.
Hell, forget the enlisted ranks. It looks as though the Army let a Muslim fanatic in as an officer, if the current story trickling out about today's events at Ft. Hood is to be believed.
ReplyDeleteNOTE THAT THE FORT HOOD SHOOTER MAJ. HASAN, WAS THE SON OF IMMIGRANTS FROM ISRAEL, AKA PALESTINE OR THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES. FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES:
ReplyDeleteBorn and reared in Virginia, the son of immigrant parents from a small Palestinian town near Jerusalem, he joined the Army right out of high school, against his parents’ wishes. The Army, in turn, put him through college and then medical school, where he trained to be a psychiatrist
His mother’s obituary, in The Roanoke Times in 2001, said she was born in Palestine in 1952. It described her as a restaurant owner “known for her ability to keep sometimes rowdy customers out of trouble and always had a warm meal for someone who otherwise would not have anything to eat that evening.”
Major Hasan had two brothers, one in Virginia and another in Jerusalem, his cousin, Nader Hasan said. The family, by and large, prospered in the United States, Mr. Hasan said. The former imam at a Silver Spring, Md., mosque where Major Hasan worshiped for about 10 years described him as proud of his work in the Army and “very serious about his religion.” The former imam, Faizul Khan, said that Major Hasan had wanted to marry an equally religious woman but that his efforts to find one had failed. “He wanted a woman who prayed five times a day and wears a hijab, and maybe the women he met were not complying with those things,” the former imam said. Mr. Hasan, 40, a lawyer in Virginia, described his cousin as a respectful, hard-working man who had devoted himself to his parents and his career.
Ben Franklin,
ReplyDeleteSo he wasn't getting any action on the side and this is why he freaked out? Reminds me some shit I read about how Germans became nazis coz there was no free sex and nude bathing, and now that they have all that, courtesy of the US, they are peaceful.
No headache, the point is that Maj. Hasan was the son of immigrants from Israel (apparently following hard on the 1967 war) and that he was so extreme in his Islamic views that he wanted a wife who dressed as if he lived in Saudi Arabia.
ReplyDeleteYou actually believe that David Robinson was only 6'5" when he enrolled?
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing an interview with The Admiral where, after playing a little piano, he said that he grew from 6'1 to 7'1 in 12 months. It is why he did not have much interest in Basketball when he was young, because he was not all that agile or extremely tall.
HERE IS MORE, FROM AN AP ARTICLE, HASAN LISTED HIS NATIONALITY AS “PALESTINIAN.” I’M GUESSING YOU WON’T SEE THAT MENTIONED ON TV OR THE RADIO.
ReplyDeletehttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_fort_hood_shooting_suspect
Hasan attended prayers regularly when he lived outside Washington, often in his Army uniform, said Faizul Khan, a former imam at a mosque Hasan attended in Silver Spring, Md. He said Hasan was a lifelong Muslim.
"I got the impression that he was a committed soldier," Khan said. He spoke often with Hasan about Hasan's desire for a wife.
On a form filled out by those seeking spouses through a program at the mosque, Hasan listed his birthplace as Arlington, Va., but his nationality as Palestinian, Khan said.
"I don't know why he listed Palestinian," Khan said, "He was not born in Palestine."
Nothing stood out about Hasan as radical or extremist, Khan said.
How does the IDF avoid enemies in their midst like Maj. Hasan?
ReplyDeleteDo they just not let non-Christian/non-Jewish Arabs enlist?
Maybe increasing minority enlistment is a good thing. Otherwise, in the event of a major war it will be mostly whites dying for their country and very few minorities. Whites have enough demographic problems as it is without reducing their numbers through war. I mean, think about the Civil War, where almost all of the casualties were whites of Northern European descent. What a demographic disaster that must have been at the time.
ReplyDeleteYup. Muilticult and diversity is working out real well for another 25+ people in America...
ReplyDelete“He wanted a woman who prayed five times a day and wears a hijab, and maybe the women he met were not complying with those things,” the former imam said.
ReplyDeleteI know of a few countries he could've moved to where he could find plenty of women like that.
Or then maybe all of these women just recognized that he was batshit crazy. If he had found a wife and bourne children it might now be them who were dead.
And this causes one to wonder: do Muslims practice sex-selective abortions like certain other groups, or do a fair number of them practice polygamy on the sly? If so we could be looking at a lot more Hasan's in our future. In their home countries, where they are already violent, their violence might be held in check by the fact that they're among their own. But in the United States, Great Britain, France, Canada, Sweden...?
It's important to remember when politicians talk up the need for a police state that we've chosen the police state - there were always other options, that the Left wouldn't want us to hear.
13+ American soldiers are dead because of Emanuel Celler, Ted Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and the 1965 immigration act. There are tens of thousands more dead for the very same reason.
I didn't see any discussion, however, of whether it's better to, say, have a 120 IQ Explosive Ordinance Disposal tech who doesn't re-up after his initial term because he wants to get a degree in a mechanical engineering than one who doesn't have that opportunity.
ReplyDeleteA fair general question, but a poor example. The armed forces have already answered that particular question to their own satisfaction; EOD's are universally high IQ.
.....
Its interesting that the distribution of races in military occupation specialties is not representative even of the military's overall composition. The combat arms are disproportionately white. Some of that may be IQ, but as much or more is choice by enlistees. Someone joining for a single term out of patriotism or desire for adventure (often working- to middle-class and white) is more likely to apply for a combat specialty, while someone enlisting for a career (often lower-class and minority) may be more likely to apply for a non-combat specialty.
Major Hasan had wanted to marry an equally religious woman but that his efforts to find one had failed.
ReplyDeleteWow, the first 'beta' spree killer that 'Whiskey' won't mention every other post.
Hispanics are underrepresented among military recruits. In 2007, Hispanics made up 17.0 percent of the general population (ages 18 to 40) but only 11.4 percent of Army enlistment contracts and 15 percent of Navy enlistment contracts.
ReplyDeleteOf course it's an open question what percentage of that 17.0 percent were actually Americans, even in the loosest sense of the term "American".
Maybe increasing minority enlistment is a good thing. Otherwise, in the event of a major war it will be mostly whites dying for their country and very few minorities.
ReplyDeleteLet me cite JS Mill in refutation of that argument.
"Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities. Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion, necessary to the working of representative government, cannot exist. The influences which form opinions and decide political acts are different in the different sections of the country. An altogether different set of leaders have the confidence of one part of the country and of another. The same books, newspapers, pamphlets, speeches, do not reach them. One section does not know what opinions, or what instigations, are circulating in another. The same incidents, the same acts, the same system of government, affect them in different ways; and each fears more injury to itself from the other nationalities than from the common arbiter, the state. Their mutual antipathies are generally much stronger than jealousy of the government. That any one of them feels aggrieved by the policy of the common ruler is sufficient to determine another to support that policy. Even if all are aggrieved, none feel that they can rely on the others for fidelity in a joint resistance; the strength of none is sufficient to resist alone, and each may reasonably think that it consults its own advantage most by bidding for the favour of the government against the rest."
"Above all, the grand and only effectual security in the last resort against the despotism of the government is in that case wanting: the sympathy of the army with the people. The military are the part of every community in whom, from the nature of the case, the distinction between their fellow-countrymen and foreigners is the deepest and strongest. To the rest of the people foreigners are merely strangers; to the soldier, they are men against whom he may be called, at a week’s notice, to fight for life or death. The difference to him is that between friends and foes — we may almost say between fellow-men and another kind of animals: for as respects the enemy, the only law is that of force, and the only mitigation the same as in the case of other animals — that of simple humanity. Soldiers to whose feelings half or three-fourths of the subjects of the same government are foreigners will have no more scruple in mowing them down, and no more desire to ask the reason why, than they would have in doing the same thing against declared enemies. An army composed of various nationalities has no other patriotism than devotion to the flag. Such armies have been the executioners of liberty through the whole duration of modern history. The sole bond which holds them together is their officers and the government which they serve; and their only idea, if they have any, of public duty is obedience to orders.”
What happens when you're already in the army and say, become obese or an alcoholic? Could the Muslim shooter have gotten out of hid deployment that way?
ReplyDeleteThey may, but not nearly to the extent of the Chinese. They have more children, so they are probably more sanguine about the birth of a girl, even though they consider males more desirable.
ReplyDeleteThey may, but not nearly to the extent of the Chinese. They have more children, so they are probably more sanguine about the birth of a girl, even though they consider males more desirable.
ReplyDeleteThe irony being that if you're a man your daughters carry more of your DNA than your sons do. But then in the Islamic world your wife's often a close relative, anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter so much.
TO the question of how many Muslims serve, relative to their share of the population: this New York Times article, an attempted defense of Muslim-American patriotism, notes that only 7 Muslims have died in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (from a combined US death toll of 5100). Muslims, IOW, comprise over 1% of the US population but less than 1 in 700 of deaths in the 2 wars.
ReplyDeleteThe article also tries to subtly imply, by mixing Arab-American with Muslim-American, that Medal of Honor recipient Michael Monsoor was Muslim, when in fact he was a devout Catholic.