I'm sure some if not most of you on here have read this article. Beware as it's a long read. Just wanted to get some dialogue going on this board.

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/12/the-tragedy-of-the-american-military/383516/

Interesting article. Thanks for posting. There are parts that I disagree with, but this quote struck me:

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People within that military tribe can feel both above and below the messy civilian reality of America. Below, in the burdens placed upon them, and the inattention to the lives, limbs, and opportunities they have lost. Above, in being able to withstand hardships that would break their hipster or slacker contemporaries.

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My feelings of being "above" civilians led me to think (while deployed) that civilians shouldn't even be allowed to have an opinion on the wars because it wasn't as though they really have a stake in them. How ridiculous and arrogant is that?! I think that it certainly illustrates the dangers of the military being isolated and disconnected from the rest of American society. I'd also be interested in reading some thoughts of others on the board.

Budrickson,

With regards to your quote, in a great sense I do agree with it. With only about 1 percent of the general population serving/have served since 9/11, I do feel that the general population should mind their own business, since very, very few are stepping up to participate in the ongoing conflicts. With WWI, WWII, and to a somewhat lesser extent Korea and Vietnam, a very large percentage of the population had a father/son/uncle/cousing or close family member serving, and felt the pain of loss of family members killed while at war. Too many of our citizens nowadays do not have "skins in the game" if you will. If the majority of the populace does not want to join, then butt out and leave us to our business on how to wage war.

I am very thankful for the outpouring of support, but I would have rather seen more people join the military and contribute that way instead of a free cup of coffee in the airport.

This is just one Soldiers opinion.

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With only about 1 percent of the general population serving/have served since 9/11, I do feel that the general population should mind their own business, since very, very few are stepping up to participate in the ongoing conflicts.

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This is probably the most popular "above" opinion within the military. Today, 23% of the US population is a current or former military member. Since 9/11, it is estimated that 34% of all youths (aged 17-24) are fit for military service (moral, physical, intellectual); of these that are initially eligible, nearly 50% have made it at least to MEPS - indicating they are indeed volunteering.

I don't know where the "less than 1%" tagline originated, but I spent a lot of time at TRADOC tasked to disprove this idea through research and data analysis. It simply isn't true, and smacks terribly of elitism.

I believe you, Tango, but am curious where the "23%" figure comes from.

http://www.va.gov/vetdata/docs/QuickFacts/Population_quickfacts.pdf

The VA chart shows about 22 million veterans. Throw in a round 2 million currently serving, and my arithmetic says 24/320 million total US population = 7.5 % of the US population are or have served.

Tango Mike, don't just stop at the 17-24 yr age bracket, open up the numbers to include all males and females that are available up to the maximum enlistment/commissioning age and what do those numbers say then? There is a reason the Army had to offer crazy money and moral waivers to get anyone to join during the surges. Its easy to say you support the war effort, but I guess its not so easy to walk to the local recruiter and raise your right hand.

Even using that one age bracket, you are saying 17 of every 100 eligible males/females enlisted or commissioned? Just using A&M as an example, what is the student population versus total numbers of cadets that commission each year from the four commissioning sources there? I know you average about 95 now in the Army department, so I would guess less than that from the other three combined? So maybe a total of 200 each year? I know the Army department there probably has 400 or so in the freshmen thru Junior pipeline that are contracted or seeking, so lets say a total of 1000 for all branches there. That is about a 50th of your student population. And that is at a Senior Military and very conservative college. And 17 Percent of all available males and females who are high school seniors across the U.S. are not lining up at the local recruiters office.

How they were recruited or why they joined is irrelevant. And you are making the typical mistake of assuming the labor pool is static, it's actually more like a Poisson distribution. The active Army hires 80,000 people per year. They are hired to replace people that left. That means that among the active Army alone, 80,000 new vets are created per year. That doesn't even include the ARNG. Or the other 3.5 services.

There have been 18 million man years in the Army alone since 2001. The average term of service is 3.8 years. That means there are new people added to those man years each year

How many people commission from A&M is also irrelevant. The Army has turned away more people than it has accepted since 2008. We're not the 1%, we're one of a lot of Americans

TM, I used A&M as an example. You have over 50,000 students there, and I would say at least 90 percent are of an age that would allow them to enlist, or about 45,000. 17 percent (amount that is physically and or morally eligible) is roughly 8,000 bodies. East Texas recruiting stations did not put 8,000 people into the military over the last year.

My one percent comment is probably incorrect, but to say that the American population is not disconnected with our ongoing conflicts is just not reality.

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With only about 1 percent of the general population serving/have served since 9/11, I do feel that the general population should mind their own business, since very, very few are stepping up to participate in the ongoing conflicts.

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This is probably the most popular "above" opinion within the military. Today, 23% of the US population is a current or former military member. Since 9/11, it is estimated that 34% of all youths (aged 17-24) are fit for military service (moral, physical, intellectual); of these that are initially eligible, nearly 50% have made it at least to MEPS - indicating they are indeed volunteering.

I don't know where the "less than 1%" tagline originated, but I spent a lot of time at TRADOC tasked to disprove this idea through research and data analysis. It simply isn't true, and smacks terribly of elitism.

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IIRC the less than 1% number is percent of the population that has served post 9-11.

There are only about 20million veterans total in the US, and this includes veterans from all eras.

Of that 20 million only 5 million have served since 1990, that includes all veterans (active, guard, and reserve)

by those figures alone only 1.6% of Americans can be considered "current era" veterans


Your numbers are nice, in that a seemingly large number of the youth who CAN serve are serving. But decisions in this country aren't just made by the small portion of the population eligible to serve.

Using that larger number as evidence that there isn't a huge and growing military/civilian divide is meaningless.

I am more concerned by this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/17/veterans-congress-fewest_n_2144852.html

Veterans In New Congress Fewest Since World War II

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The 113th Congress that takes office in January will have the fewest military veterans since World War II, although the number of members who served in the Afghanistan or Iraq wars is growing.

Nineteen percent of the next Congress will be veterans, with 85 in the House and 19 in the Senate, according to a tally compiled by the American Legion. In the current Congress, there are 91 veterans in the House and 25 in the Senate.

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Veterans are still better represented in Congress than in the general population, but that number falling is dangerous.

You don't have to look any farther than the ENORMOUS disconnect between our civilian-lawyer president and the military. Obama has shown time and time again that he has absolutely NO concept of what the military does or what military service means.

The statistics I would like to see, but I haven't, are the number of new recruits and offers who have parents or siblings who served in the military.

More and more the military is becoming a class of it's own. I come from a military family. Father, grandfathers, uncles, aunts, both siblings. It is very likely that when I have children they too will one day serve in the military.

There are a LOT of families like mine in this country. That means that that 1% figure is even more concerning, because it's very likely that most of them are immediately related to others, meaning the % of Americans who don't even have any relatives in the military is astronomical.

I think a lot of vets lose sight of just how uncommon they are. Most of us have vets in our families, are friends with other vets, maybe even work at companies that have a strong emphasis on hiring veterans. To us it's very "normal," but there is an entire world outside of our own, and most of the people in that world don't serve.

I once saw a stat that said something like 75% of people who serve in the Armed Forces have a direct relative that served (father, mother, brother, etc.) before they did. I thought that was interesting as well.

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Your numbers are nice, in that a seemingly large number of the youth who CAN serve are serving. But decisions in this country aren't just made by the small portion of the population eligible to serve.

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I can't control who is automatically disqualified for being fat, being unintelligent, having a chronic health condition, or got arrested. The use of the total population is really only good for skewing data.

It's all about getting participation from the available pool. The 60MM children are of no use to us, etc

I fully agree that the huge-and-growing civil/military divide is an issue (it led to Rome's collapse, after all), I'm just arguing against the 1% datum that gets tossed around as a badge of honor. If we act like we 're so separate from our countrymen we're significantly adding to that growing divide by enforcing our own caste

Interesting article and covered a lot of ground. I'll be back later to give a more detailed response on a few of the points that I would like to address from the article. For now, I'll just throw my 2 cents worth in on the participation rate discussion.

I don't really know much about the pre-WWII military participation rate in my family although I did have at least 1 great-great-uncle who was wounded in WWI fighting for the Kaiser. My details on great-uncles participation rates is a little sketchy too so I'll just stick with my grandfathers, uncles and cousins where I have first-hand information.

WWII era - 2 grandfathers - 100% participation (Generation 1 let's say) - 1 Navy (tailgunner trainer - Pensacola), 1 Army Air Corps (Combat Medic - South Pacific)
Korea-Vietnam-Cold War era - 29% participation (Generation 2) - 2/7 males. Father - US Army Engineer, Uncle - US Army Tanker. Both served in "peacetime" approximately 1959-1962. 1 Vietnam era uncle was medically disqualified and I was told as a kid to never bring it up because he felt terrible about it.
Desert Storm-pre 9/11 era - 20% participation (Generation 3) - 2/10 males. Self - US Army Tanker, Cousin - USMC Infantry. Both completed service before 9/11.

In summary, looking at the last 3 Generations of my family, we've fallen from a 100% participation rate in the military to a 20% participation rate. And the most interesting angle is that we've had military service across three generations but, no matter how close to war my father thought we were in West Germany or my uncle though we were in Korea, we've only had 1 combat veteran. 1/6 = 17% of those who served. And nobody in my family has seen combat since 1945.

Corps Outfit Buddies - I have no way of knowing how many dropouts from the original 30 of us that hit the wall in Fall '88 might have enlisted later but, I can say that of the 12 of us who made it to Final Review, we had 3 Army Officers and 1 USMC enlisted. 2 of the Army Officers served in Afghanistan. So from that group we had 33% participation in the Military and 17% of the 12 serve in a combat zone.

So another angle to the analysis of who has served and who hasn't is how many have served versus how many have at least been in a combat zone.

Among my friends in California, anybody who served after Vietnam is considered an oddity. And most of those folks who even acknowledge my military service assume it was something like STRIPES.

Living in Australia where the entire Australian Defence Force is only about 25,000 people, military service is so rare that the Prime Minister (Howard/Rudd/Gillard/Abbott) goes on TV to acknowledge every single Aussie Digger who has been killed in Afghanistan. Could you imagine if Bush/Obama went on TV to acknowledge the service of every American KIA?

Here's the page showing all 40 Aussie KIAs in Afghanistan since 9/11.
KIA Trooper David Pearce (8 Oct. 2007) had the most classic Aussie photo so I threw that in.

Tango... You are correct, but you are answering the wrong question. You are addressing the percent of people serving compared with the population of those eligible to serve. When addressing the question of military vs civilian disconnect, the question is veterans vs total voting age population. I'd guess that number is similar to what HeyNav suggested.

Again, still just addressing the participation rate. You can dig around on the census.gov site and dig up all this information. Considering the 18 and over population in 2013, here's what they estimate:

Total: 241,556,724
Nonveteran: 221,968,138 = 91.89%
Veteran: 19,588,586 = 8.11% of the population over 18 are Veterans
Male Veteran: 18,036,876 = 92.08% of Veterans are Male
Female Veteran: 1,551,710 = 7.92% of Veterans are Female

Veterans aged 18-34 = 1,627,662 = 8.31% of Veterans = 0.67% of Americans over 18

Now let's take a look at participation rates for males across the age groups the Census department has lumped together.

18 to 34 years: 37,082,660
Veteran: 1,326,760 = 3.58%
Nonveteran: 35,755,900 = 96.42%

35 to 54 years: 41,519,834
Veteran: 4,052,575 = 9.76%
Nonveteran: 37,467,259 = 90.24%

Note: The last group drafted was in 1972 of men born in 1952. They would have been 61 years old during this 2013 Census estimate. So the group from 35-54 was part of the all-volunteer force.

55 to 64 years: 18,947,363
Veteran: 3,664,398 = 19.34%
Nonveteran: 15,282,965 = 80.66%

65 to 74 years: 11,795,606
Veteran: 4,591,789 = 38.93%
Nonveteran: 7,203,817 = 61.07%

75 years and over: 7,778,611
Veteran: 4,401,354 = 56.58%
Nonveteran: 3,377,257 = 43.41%

Clearly, males served the most when "The Draft" was in effect.

But per the discussion earlier in this thread, I think it's safe to say that yeah - young folks are not serving today in the numbers they once did. Thus very few families have "skin in the game".

Now for the female participation rates which should be interesting because they've never been subject to "The Draft".

18 to 34 years: 36,439,230
Veteran: 300,902 = 0.83%
Nonveteran: 36,138,328 = 99.17%

35 to 54 years: 42,517,877
Veteran: 665,161 = 1.56%
Nonveteran: 41,852,716 = 98.44%

55 to 64 years: 20,385,770
Veteran: 310,516 = 1.52%
Nonveteran: 20,075,254 = 98.48%

65 to 74 years: 13,418,140
Veteran: 123,496 = 0.92%
Nonveteran: 13,294,644 = 99.08%

75 years and over: 11,671,633
Veteran: 151,635 = 1.30%
Nonveteran: 11,519,998 = 98.70%

So, females appear to have served the most during the post-Vietnam to Pre 9/11 era.

Since the data was there and I've got some time on my hands, I decided to look into something that I've seen a good bit written about online and heard talking heads discuss over the years. I wanted to see what the participation rates looked like based on the US Census defined Race, Ethnicity and Age Group. The results were not exactly what I expected that I would find.

There's a lot of data here and it's not in a great format to present. So here's what I'm going to do. For each Census defined Age Group, I'm going to highlight the greatest participation rate by boldfacing it and I'm going to highlight the lowest participation rate by boldfacing and italicizing it. Again, I don't really care one way or another about the results but I thought they were interesting. I'm curious about the female number too but... this took a little while to put together so, I'll have to save that for another day.

Keep in mind that the most recent group subject to "The Draft" would be aged 61 for purposes of these age groups.

White Males over 18: 88,889,776

18 to 34 years: 25,939,820
Veteran: 1,026,941 = 3.96%
Nonveteran: 24,912,879 = 96.04%

35 to 54 years: 31,020,590
Veteran: 3,120,509 = 10.06%
Nonveteran: 27,900,081 = 89.94%

55 to 64 years: 15,248,795
Veteran: 2,984,672 = 19.57%
Nonveteran: 12,264,123 = 80.42%

65 to 74 years: 9,932,219
Veteran: 4,090,701 = 41.19%
Nonveteran: 5,841,518 = 58.81%

75 years and over: 6,748,352
Veteran: 4,035,998 = 59.81%
Nonveteran: 2,712,354 = 40.19%

Black Males over 18: 13,624,362

18 to 34 years: 5,082,805
Veteran: 158,211 = 3.11%
Nonveteran: 4,924,594 = 96.89%

35 to 54 years: 4,986,291
Veteran: 660,700 = 13.25%
Nonveteran: 4,325,591 = 86.75%

55 to 64 years: 2,010,206
Veteran: 492,801 = 24.51%
Nonveteran: 1,517,405 = 74.49%

65 to 74 years: 1,001,950
Veteran: 342,360 = 34.17%
Nonveteran: 659,590 = 65.83%

75 years and over: 543,110
Veteran: 239,348 = 44.07%
Nonveteran: 303,762 = 55.93%

American Indian and Alaska Native Males over 18: 891,711

18 to 34 years: 337,562
Veteran: 11,873 = 3.52%
Nonveteran: 325,689 = 96.48%

35 to 54 years: 325,216
Veteran: 34,544 = 10.62%
Nonveteran: 290,672 = 89.38%

55 to 64 years: 130,597
Veteran: 32,878 = 25.18%
Nonveteran: 97,719 = 74.82%

65 to 74 years: 65,338
Veteran: 28,453 = 43.55%
Nonveteran: 36,885 = 56.45%

75 years and over: 32,998
Veteran: 16,184 = 49.05%
Nonveteran: 16,814 = 50.95%

Asian Males over 18: 5,865,008

18 to 34 years: 2,071,170
Veteran: 33,170 = 1.60%
Nonveteran: 2,038,000 = 98.40%

35 to 54 years: 2,254,312
Veteran: 65,906 = 2.92%
Nonveteran: 2,188,406 = 97.08%

55 to 64 years: 797,589
Veteran: 43,692 = 5.48%
Nonveteran: 753,897 = 94.52%

65 to 74 years: 463,183
Veteran: 52,712 = 11.38%
Nonveteran: 410,471 = 88.62%

75 years and over: 278,754
Veteran: 53,055 = 19.03%
Nonveteran: 225,699 = 80.97%

Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Males over 18: 184,182

18 to 34 years: 77,630
Veteran: 4,246 = 5.47%
Nonveteran: 73,384 = 94.53%

35 to 54 years: 69,255
Veteran: 8,549 = 12.34%
Nonveteran: 60,706 = 87.66%

55 to 64 years: 21,671
Veteran: 6,750 = 31.15%
Nonveteran: 14,921 = 68.85%

65 to 74 years: 10,704
Veteran: 3,263 = 30.48%
Nonveteran: 7,441 = 69.51%

75 years and over: 4,922
Veteran: 2,659 = 54.02%
Nonveteran: 2,263 = 45.98%

Some Other Race Males over 18: 5,263,260

18 to 34 years: 2,404,976
Veteran: 44,973 = 1.87%
Nonveteran: 2,360,003 = 98.13%

35 to 54 years: 2,074,263
Veteran: 68,854 = 3.32%
Nonveteran: 2,005,409 = 96.68%

55 to 64 years: 482,975
Veteran: 42,689 = 8.84%
Nonveteran: 440,286 = 91.16%

65 to 74 years: 202,279
Veteran: 27,429 = 13.56%
Nonveteran: 174,850 = 86.44%

75 years and over: 98,767
Veteran: 20,354 = 20.61%
Nonveteran: 78,413 = 79.39%

Two or More Races Males over 18: 2,405,775

18 to 34 years: 1,168,697
Veteran: 47,346 = 4.05%
Nonveteran: 1,121,351 = 95.95%

35 to 54 years: 789,907
Veteran: 93,513 = 11.84%
Nonveteran: 696,394 = 88.16%

55 to 64 years: 255,530
Veteran: 60,916 = 23.84%
Nonveteran: 194,614 = 76.16%

65 to 74 years: 119,933
Veteran: 46,871 = 39.08%
Nonveteran: 73,062 = 60.92%

75 years and over: 71,708
Veteran: 33,756 = 47.07%
Nonveteran: 37,952 = 52.93%

White Non-Hispanic Males over 18: 76,938,188

18 to 34 years: 20,896,340
Veteran: 905,613 = 4.33%
Nonveteran: 19,990,727 = 95.67%

35 to 54 years: 26,420,061
Veteran: 2,885,731 = 10.92%
Nonveteran: 23,534,330 = 89.08%

55 to 64 years: 13,995,590
Veteran: 2,832,995 = 20.24%
Nonveteran: 11,162,595 = 79.76%

65 to 74 years: 9,281,251
Veteran: 3,952,230 = 42.58%
Nonveteran: 5,329,021 = 57.42%

75 years and over: 6,344,946
Veteran: 3,919,256 = 61.77%
Nonveteran: 2,425,690 = 38.23%

Hispanic Males over 18: 18,229,792

18 to 34 years: 7,954,788
Veteran: 182,317 = 2.29%
Nonveteran: 7,772,471 = 97.71%

35 to 54 years: 7,025,603
Veteran: 333,522 = 4.75%
Nonveteran: 6,692,081 = 95.25%

55 to 64 years: 1,833,727
Veteran: 210,602 = 11.48%
Nonveteran: 1,623,125 = 88.52%

65 to 74 years: 890,301
Veteran: 174,695 = 19.62%
Nonveteran: 715,606 = 80.38%

75 years and over: 525,373
Veteran: 144,203 = 27.45%
Nonveteran: 381,170 = 72.55%

Continuing to have fun with the Census Data. Here's the Veteran status ranked by State with the percentage of Veterans for each state listed after the name.

Interesting note, the US Average is 8.1% which makes the US ranked 40th against individual States. The means there are a lot of populous states where military participation is below average - Texas is among them.

EDIT: I decided to highlight the former Confederate States just for the heck of it. Mostly because guys I served with from Tennessee and Alabama always emphasized how strong their military participation rate was. Just for kicks, I decided to italicize the Union States from the Civil War.

1 Alaska 11.9
2 Maine 11.2
3 Wyoming 11.1
4 Virginia 10.9
5 Montana 10.5
6 Hawaii 10.3
7 Nevada 10.2
8 New Mexico 10.2
9 Washington 10.2
10 West Virginia 10.2
11 Idaho 10.1
12 New Hampshire 10.1
13 Arizona 10.0
14 South Carolina 10.0
15 South Dakota 9.8
16 Arkansas 9.7
17 Oklahoma 9.7
18 Alabama 9.6
19 Colorado 9.5
20 Delaware 9.5
21 Oregon 9.5
22 Florida 9.4
23 Missouri 9.4
24 Tennessee 9.3
25 Kansas 9.1
26 North Carolina 9.1
27 Nebraska 8.9
28 Ohio 8.9
29 Iowa 8.8
30 Maryland 8.8
31 North Dakota 8.8
32 Georgia 8.7
33 Kentucky 8.7
34 Pennsylvania 8.5
35 Indiana 8.4
36 Wisconsin 8.3
37 Minnesota 8.2
38 Mississippi 8.2
39 Vermont 8.2
40 Michigan 8.1

United States 8.1

41 Louisiana 7.7
42 Rhode Island 7.7
43 Texas 7.7
44 Connecticut 6.8
45 Illinois 6.7
46 Utah 6.6
47 Massachusetts 6.4
48 California 6.0
49 New Jersey 5.6
50 District of Columbia 5.2
51 New York 5.2
52 Puerto Rico 3.2

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Tango... You are correct, but you are answering the wrong question. You are addressing the percent of people serving compared with the population of those eligible to serve. When addressing the question of military vs civilian disconnect, the question is veterans vs total voting age population. I'd guess that number is similar to what HeyNav suggested.

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Pretty much spot on here, with the exception that Tango is, at best, clubbing ants to death while alligators roam the halls". Tango is, as you stated, answering the wrong question not the military vs civilian disconnect question. And, Tango is trying to hijack the debate

Hollywood BQ - thanks for presenting the fascinating data and letting us summarize it for ourselves. Also, thanks Hollywood for not writing about Poisson Distributions. :-)

Was anyone else "blown away" by the low percentage of asian males in each age category that were veterans?

Hollywood BQ, that data is interesting, but not surprising. I think if you take into account factors such as the draft, the popularity of the war, defined objectives, it isn't difficult to see why there are fewer veterans now than in the past. For some, 9/11 might seem like Pearl Harbor, but there was never the sense that our country was in definite peril. Vietnam was unpopular, but the draft kept numbers up. Now we have a war that, despite the popularity of the troops, isn't particularly popular or easy to define. Of course people aren't going to sign up for that.

While I understand the sentiment of "shut up and let us fight our war" from some military members, we live in a democracy and that attitude can be dangerous for the nation and its troops.

WolfCall, the numbers start from WWII, when there was a fair bit of discrimination and worse (internment camps) against Asians since we were at war with the Japanese. If family in the military is a big indicator of having someone serve, losing that population during WWII might be having a ripple effect.

Once I found the numbers, I wanted to either confirm or dispel some myths and urban legends that I had heard over the years.

The biggest one was that during the Vietnam War, the draft was unfair and substantially more Blacks were drafted than Whites. While I'm not denying that cases of college deferrments existed and I have known a few college professors and such who stuck around and got their PhD so they wouldn't have to serve. And of course there's the legendary Stanford University grading policy of not giving the grade "F" so students wouldn't fail out of college and be subject to the draft.

However, what these statistics show is that during the Vietnam era, that racist draft narrative is simply not true. What is even more interesting is that after the all-volunteer force was created, Blacks served at a higher rate than anybody else.

Two things that stick out that really amaze me:

• The high level of service rates among Native American, Alaskan Indians and Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders. That's even across generations.
  
• The fact that 6 out of 10 White Males my fathers age are Veterans.
  

Compare that 6 out of 10 White Males over 75 years old against today's White Male service rate of not 4 out of 10. But rather 4 out of 100 for ages 18-34.

Just think about that for a second.

If I go to church let's say and there are mostly old people there. For every 2 crotchety old white guys, it's almost certain that 1 of those 2 guys served. If I were looking for a veteran amongst the 18-34 year old crowd, I would need to have 25 white males to have a reasonable chance that I would find just one veteran. That drastic level of cultural change is something that completely slipped past me. It didn't really hit me until I ran the numbers myself.

Great conversation Hollywood BQ and BBRex. I attend a medium-arge Baptist Church and see the same thing with large % of old guys as veterans, including me.
As an FYI, my wife and I just got back from our son's graduation from Basic Combat Training where the Company Captain talked about the 1% [of the entire population] defending the 99% [of the entire population]. However, veterans were asked to stand and acknowledged. I am totally o.k. with the 1% quote.
My wife and I thought the graduation ceremony was spectacular.

About 2005 or so, I attended the graduation ceremony for one of my cousins in Reed Arena. LTG Van Alstyne was Commandant and when they did the Commissioning ceremony, he asked all the Veterans to stand. The way he did it (which I can't remember exactly now) was pretty neat. He incrementally brought in different groups and eventually had the entire crowd standing. Anyway, we had probably 20-25 family members sitting together including probably 6 or 7 kids. It was wild because out of 15 or so adults, my father and I were the only ones standing because we were the only ones who had served. I have to say that it was kind of neat standing with my father and being recognized together as Veterans.

I get in arguments with some guys on my Facebook about what constitutes "Defense" and why we need a strong military. One of the guys (whose family bailed from Lebanon shortly after he was born) wanted to argue with me that my service was pointless because nobody has been shooting at me personally. Therefore, why did I sign up for the Military? I tried (unsuccessfully) to explain to him that if you show a strong enough defense, then people won't shoot at you because they know what will happen if they do. Another guy tried to saddle me with guilt about the prison at Guantanamo. I had served, therefore he concluded that I was guilty by association of torturing prisoners, etc. It's just amazing how little some folks comprehend.

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About 2005 or so, I attended the graduation ceremony for one of my cousins in Reed Arena. LTG Van Alstyne was Commandant and when they did the Commissioning ceremony, he asked all the Veterans to stand.

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That might have been '04. That's when I got my master's degree. My dad is Vietnam vet, and he stood when they made the announcement. I did six easy years of reserve time from '88-'94, and, given all that was going on, didn't feel comfortable standing up down on the arena floor to be recognized for that. Sort of pi$$ed him off until I explained my reasoning later. I do think of myself as a military veteran, but I pretty much just put a toe into the water, so to speak.

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Compare that 6 out of 10 White Males over 75 years old against today's White Male service rate of not 4 out of 10. But rather 4 out of 100 for ages 18-34.

Just think about that for a second.

If I go to church let's say and there are mostly old people there. For every 2 crotchety old white guys, it's almost certain that 1 of those 2 guys served. If I were looking for a veteran amongst the 18-34 year old crowd, I would need to have 25 white males to have a reasonable chance that I would find just one veteran. That drastic level of cultural change is something that completely slipped past me. It didn't really hit me until I ran the numbers myself.

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Wow Hollywood! That certainly does put it into perspective! Great work breaking down the statistics.

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Compare that 6 out of 10 White Males over 75 years old against today's White Male service rate of not 4 out of 10. But rather 4 out of 100 for ages 18-34.

Just think about that for a second.

If I go to church let's say and there are mostly old people there. For every 2 crotchety old white guys, it's almost certain that 1 of those 2 guys served. If I were looking for a veteran amongst the 18-34 year old crowd, I would need to have 25 white males to have a reasonable chance that I would find just one veteran. That drastic level of cultural change is something that completely slipped past me. It didn't really hit me until I ran the numbers myself.

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Wow Hollywood! That certainly does put it into perspective! Great work breaking down the statistics.

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I didn't closely study all the numbers you posted Hollywood and I have no doubt that more stepped up then than do now, but this doesn't seem that shocking to me. I would think with the size of our military then compared to the population of eligible people almost 1 of 2 HAD to serve (whether volunteered or drafted). I think I heard about 16M Americans served in WWII (not sure if that number was deployed or just served during). Compare that now to a military of maybe 3M and a US population that has doubled.
In short, it doesn't seem surprising to me because there are/have been fewer opportunities to serve for the current 18-34 year old population. Am I missing something?

Notice the 5 most liberal states at the bottom 1

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With only about 1 percent of the general population serving/have served since 9/11, I do feel that the general population should mind their own business, since very, very few are stepping up to participate in the ongoing conflicts.

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This is probably the most popular "above" opinion within the military. Today, 23% of the US population is a current or former military member. Since 9/11, it is estimated that 34% of all youths (aged 17-24) are fit for military service (moral, physical, intellectual); of these that are initially eligible, nearly 50% have made it at least to MEPS - indicating they are indeed volunteering.

I don't know where the "less than 1%" tagline originated, but I spent a lot of time at TRADOC tasked to disprove this idea through research and data analysis. It simply isn't true, and smacks terribly of elitism.

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1) Tango completely misses the point. It is overall participation rates driving the wedge, not available participation rates.

2) Having been a Recruiting Company & MEPS CO I spent years ankle too neck deep in the numbers, & what TRADOC produced was always off by a significant margin.
A) I benefitted tremendously from what they were saying, an OER claiming I put over 50%* of the eligible kids in uniform reads a lot better than 30%.
B) It is a systemic data collection error starting with recruiters & compounded every step of the way. How many HS kids fail mandatory in school ASVAB testing then crush it when they sit down in an actual testing facility? How many kids fail the first time but w/a little remedial work get a 65+? How often would the Air Force medically fail some one on their weird speach test**, instead of going to psych boards? Ect...

3) Of far greater value than raw service numbers is combat zone participation numbers. Specifically who has deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan? Not taking away from slick sleeve short timers, or AF/Navy pax who did not get the opportunity, but there is a world of difference btwn me, my buddy who is a Hospital Logistician w/12 months at a hospital in BAF, & folks who have never had an OCONUS assignment.

4) Finally the 1% that I actually hear is guys with time in a war zone, not every one who wore a uniform.
A) I have never heard anyone mention 1% Active Duty participation.
B) I have Soldiers with Ranger Up shirts trumpeting the .67%***of Americans w/a combat tour.
C) Less than 1/3 of those w/a combat patch (or service equivilant) will earn a CAB, CIB, CMB (or service equivalent).
D) I am not knocking the Soldiers, Sailors, Air Men, & Marines who never shirked their duty to avoid tours; just that there experiences are significantly different & not necssisarily comparable or contributory to the divide.



*With out looking it up I think it reads 62% which was patently false. I honestly don't know what it really was but if I had to guess I would put it around 30%.

** I saw it in the MEPS, something about a grandpa saying banana oil.

***I do not know the actual number, nor do I count a t-shirt as a valid source.

TRADOC didn't own recruiting until Accessions Command went away, and the data doesn't come from Recruiting Command anyway - the data came from the ASA-MR&A, I just happened to be a guy with a PhD in a data analytics field so I crunched the numbers.

And "combat zone participation" is never a metric used because it is skewed by man-years. Your hospital friend has one man-year in AFG, I've got 5.5 man-years (and counting), plus it is nearly impossible to quantify participation by Navy, AF, and theater reserve units

My main points are: 1) available participation v. actual participation is not driving the divide; total participation v. total non participation is creating the problem. I know (more than most) we are doing a great job getting the guys we need, & I am not saying we should lower our standards. However the divide exists & it should be addressed.

2) The biggest contributor to the problem is military personnel w/combat zone deployment time v. the population at large. Man years is an excellent way to look at that data, however it is not necessarily the best way for this discussion. It is to easy to look up the total number of Soldiers who have 1 or more deployments lasting 30 days or longer. That is the number in question & it does come out to well under 1% of the total US population. That is the single most important number in my opinion, although man years is critical to tracking the longitudinal impact of multiple tours.

MIRS was (& presumably still is) an 8 hummped camel that needs replacing. My heart goes out to you for putting in the effort to dig through it & produce something of value. I am sure you are more of an expert on excell pivot tables than I will ever be.

5.5 years & counting! Rough stuff.

Good Luck & stay safe!