Astore - Military Appeal and Diversity

Let me start by saying that what follows is a fairly critical reading of Astore, and I am probably harsher than necessary on him in particular. Truthfully, my skepticism comes from a more generalized place of curiosity about the questions he raises concerning diversity.

I agree with Astore that "If you want to change anything...you first have to make an effort to engage with it," (1) but I had trouble with some of the conclusions he seemed to draw from experience and observation - not to say these were not grounded in fact.

While diverse, the military remains hierarchical, and four groups come to mind as traditionally lacking within the military establishment: women, LGBT, Progressives (leftist liberals, leftists, pacifists...), and the wealthy.

I decided to search for some statistics to test out both Astore's argument, and my own skepticism. The Heritage Foundation, a traditionally conservative think tank, published an article meant to disperse stereotypes about over-representation of minorities and lower-income recruits. Still, the findings show that, while Whites are proportionally represented, African-Americans and Native-Americans are over-represented (Asians are under-represented). Further, they state that the mean income of recruits was $41,141 compared to a national mean of $41,994. What this doesn't prove, however, is that the spectrum of income is the same. I would guess that the median income is different, possibly by a great deal. This would be the case if the military were primarily comprised of lower-middle, middle, and upper-middle class recruits, while our country income spectrum covers those with incomes far below the poverty line, up to those with yearly incomes in the billions. The mean could be fairly close in this instance. The Heritage Foundation, in support of this idea, goes on to say that "middle income...areas provided consistently higher proportions of recruits." http://www.heritage.org/research/nationalsecurity/cda05-08.cfm

Astore goes on to state that politically the military tends towards conservatism, and points out the prevalence of military involvement in rural areas and "small town America." To me, rather than demonstrating diversity of opinion or location, such trends appear skewed. I don't mean to sound harsh, but I am skeptical. I suppose I seek a greater range in terms of assessing diversity. I was interested to see, for instance, that in the statistics provided by the Heritage Foundation (by way of the DoD) a disproportionate number of recruits come from Southern and Western states. Since 9/11/2001, the following states saw an increase of more than 10 percentage points in their recruit-to-population ratio: my own state - Wisconsin (I am not surprised), Iowa, Kansas, Washington, Arizona, Indiana, Oregon, Nebraska, Colorado, Minnesota, and (the odd one out, but indicative of the Southern trend) North Carolina.

Astore is right, the military is diverse, but not necessarily in a way that negates some troublesome attributes about that diversity. We have a military that is proportionally more diverse racially, more conservative politically, more male dominated, and stocked with more lower- and middle-income Americans than America. Astore suggests that US citizens trust the military more than the rest of the government - I don't doubt that this is true. The fact that the military is comprised of people disproportionally from middle, South, and Western America, and who are overwhelmingly middle-class and conservative, leads me to believe it is probable that the vast population represented by these recruits would trust their boys over the big-wigs in Washington DC. Being from middle-America, and, specifically, one of those states with a high ratio of recruits:population, I know that the military feels more concrete than any other government institution. Congress, the President, the policy-makers, the lobbyists, they all feel far away, impossible to relate to, impossible to touch. But the military is tangible. The military recruits at school, at the mall, at community and church events. Almost everyone I knew had a family member or close friend in the military. The military is the way to be involved in a broader conception of what it means to be American, it takes you to other countries for free, it pays for your education, it draws attention to you, it instills pride and brings deference, it is respected as a career and requires skills that would otherwise only bring in working- or lower-class incomes.

Maybe Astore is right, that the military is attractive to young men because it is masculinized, but I don't think that is the main reason, I don't even think it is necessarily a conscious part of the decision. Astore speaks of the need for an outlet for men to become men, but I think that he is much closer to the truth when he talks about the need for opportunity and possibility, and that attraction is not singularly masculine. I knew almost as many women going into service in high school as I did men, and they all were going for similar reasons - for their family's respect and pride, income, travel, and the promise of a paid college education when they returned. Almost every person I knew had considered military service in some field, whether they chose to go or not. I don't think it's a coincidence that we were the area high school with the lowest mean and median incomes, the most racial diversity, and the most oriented towards practical, technical work experience before graduation. All things considered, I tend to believe that a gendered reading of the attraction of the military falls far short of the truth: the military is extremely attractive for a myriad of reasons. True, masculinity has long been associated with strength and militarism, but the opposite is also true: militarism has long been associated with male strength. I'd like to give recruits more credit and assume that they are joining for various tangible and viable reasons rather than a psychological complex about their threatened masculinity in our "mommy-state."

Still, Astore and I agree on one thing: in debates surrounding our military, the discussion is not nearly as multifaceted as the military itself is. Progressives, liberals, and conservatives are lacking in their critiques and their defenses of the military, in part because many of our elected officials, and even more of the political appointees, are out-of-touch with the population in our country which is most engaged in the military - the rural and very urban, the lower- and middle-class, and the Western and Southern US citizens.