Should I join the US armed forces?

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It might make you uncomfortable, doesn't make it illegitimate.

Grow up, already

You're assuming that every PFC in the army and marines is a drone operator. There are STILL foot soldiers my friend. Combat is not completely automated.....yet.

If it means the brute arm of the industrial military complex is one rifle less, I'd call it a success.

A comment like that from someone like you would only encourage me to join up.

He isn't even an American, Raptor; nor does he have any real idea of what it is like to be one.

You know someone having a differing opinion than you is not a sign they need to 'grow up' its more a sign they disagree...its not any less valid than your opinion.

No. NEVER join the military. EVER! Especially if you are a very young black man! If so, you are far more likely to be placed on infantry!

No. NEVER join the military. EVER!

Especially if you are a very young black man! If so, you are far more likely to be placed on infantry!

No. NEVER join the military. EVER!

Especially if you are a very young black man! If so, you are far more likely to be placed on infantry!

But a close examination of Pentagon statistics suggests that at least some of the conventional wisdom about who is most at risk during wartime is misleading. For example, although blacks account for 26% of Army troops, they make up a much smaller percentage of those in front-line combat units, the most likely to be killed or injured in a conventional war.

In all four military branches, black recruits tend to favor support jobs, from mechanic to unit administrator, over traditional combat slots such as infantryman or fighter pilot. That division of labor is well known within the armed forces. But the root causes and the question of whether it's relevant in an age when recruits typically choose their own jobs remain subjects of debate.

Scholars and military personnel specialists say there are several possible explanations for the relatively small number of blacks in jobs that involve dropping bombs and shooting rifles. The most plausible include economic factors, cultural differences and fears that a subtle form of racism has made minorities feel unwelcome, especially in elite units.

Since the Pentagon started the all-volunteer military in the early 1970s, black unemployment has frequently been double the rate for whites. So, for a large number of black recruits, it's important to select military jobs that teach marketable skills.

David Segal, a military sociologist at the University of Maryland, says that's probably a good reason more black soldiers don't join infantry units: "There aren't a lot of corporations looking to hire people who fire rifles for a living."

But companies might want to recruit former soldiers who have computer or administrative skills. In fact, blacks greatly outnumber whites as administrative specialists in the enlisted Army: 4,758 to 2,689. Navy statistics are similar: Though blacks make up about 18% of the Navy, they account for 32% of enlisted administrative specialists.

The contention that in America’s wars, minorities bear a disproportionate burden of the fighting and dying has long been a staple of Left-wing rhetoric since the Vietnam War. Even as late as the Gulf War in 1991, Jesse Jackson, addressing a largely black audience, claimed that "when that war breaks out, our youth will burn first."

But as Will Rogers once said, "It’s not the things we don’t know that get us into trouble. It’s the things we know that just ain’t true." The claim of disproportionate minority casualties wasn’t true during the Vietnam War, where the record indicates that 86 percent of those who died during the war were white and 12.5 percent were black, from an age group in which blacks comprised 13.1 percent of the population. It is even less true today.

...

While overall, minorities comprise 30 percent of the Army, one of the two services that would be expected to bear the brunt of close combat in Iraq, they tend to be underrepresented in the combat arms. As the incomparable Tom Ricks observed in a January 1997 article for the Wall Street Journal, the "old stereotype about the Army’s front-line units being cannon fodder laden with minorities" is false.

...

On the one hand, white youths are frequently looking for adventure while they try to raise money for college. As a result, they tend to flock to the combat arms, especially elite units like the Rangers and airborne. On the other, young black males, "are generally seeking skills, and so gravitate toward administrative and technical jobs. Because they often find the Army a fairer and better place to live than civilian society, blacks tend to stay enlisted longer: Though only 22% of today’s recruits are black, the Army itself is 30% black."