Blacks, women wary of joining U.S. military

Easier wars in the 90s
The Army isn’t the only service having trouble finding recruits. The Marine Corps fell slightly short of its recruiting goal in January — the first month that had happened in nearly a decade — amid parents’ concerns about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the Marines remain on target to meet their full-year goal.

The Navy and Air Force have had no problems meeting their goals.

A separate study, done shortly after President Bush declared major combat operations in Iraq had ended, concluded, “Combat is the number one reason why” blacks don’t want to join the Army.

Smith, the Army Recruiting Command spokesman, said the current, reduced level of black recruits is closer to the percentage of young blacks in the eligible population. “Our strategy of being representative of America is working,” he said.

As recently as 2001, before the global war on terrorism, young people tended to think of military service as less risky. The 1991 Gulf War had ended after only 100 hours of ground combat with relatively few deaths, and no American soldier died in the 1999 air war over Kosovo.

Females also are getting harder to recruit, with the share of females in Army recruiting classes falling for four years running, from 21.6 percent in 2001 to 19.2 percent last year. It has slipped still further this year to 17.1 percent.

“Over time, females are seeing less benefits to joining the Army and more barriers, particularly combat-related reasons,” concluded another study done for the Army last spring by the market research firm Millward Brown.

Another study cited a survey that said 50 percent of youth rate the Army as their last choice for a career.

“There is a lot of work to be done, and it will take a lot of time to make major changes in the Army experience and the Army’s image,” that study concluded. “Risks of military service, and particularly the Army, are perceived to far outweigh the rewards for the vast majority of youth.”

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