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The Facts About Today’s Soldiers
• The average reading level of new soldiers is roughly a full grade level higher than their civilian peers’.
• Enlistees’ high school graduation rate was 97 percent in 2003, 2004, and 2005. The civilian graduation rate is seventeen percentage points lower.
• The wealthiest 40 percent of neighborhoods in America are the home of 45.6 percent of 2005 enlistees. For every two U.S. recruits from the poorest neighborhoods, three come from the richest.
• There is no statistical evidence to support the claim that minorities are being targeted or exploited for military service. The 100 zip codes with the highest proportions of African-Americans were actually under-represented among military enlistees in 2005.
• Every U.S. military recruit of the last 33 years has been a volunteer.
(See also, “Who Are the Recruits? The Demographic Characteristics of U.S. Military Enlistment, 2003–2005”)

Antiwar criticism has morphed into a patronizing attitude toward GIs, by way of questioning the quality of the men and women who volunteer to serve. Perhaps it is easier for the antiwar Left to believe that soldiers are unintelligent than to believe that they are taking risks willingly because they actually believe in the war’s purpose.

The good news is that many Democrats were quick to condemn Kerry’s statement and call for an apology. But righting this wrong requires more than an apology for a one-time slip. At issue is a core belief that sorely needs to be corrected because it is intertwined with weighty policy issues.

The fundamental irony is that so many elites who are eager to cut and run from Iraq stand in clear contrast to the tens of thousands of young adults who are joining the fight, understand the stakes, and want to win.

To read the full article:

Stupid Soldiers: The Left’s Worldview
by Tim Kane

http://www.humanevents.com/