Socio-Economic Class of Military Personnel

Factual Questions
1

I read often that the United States military is a working choice for the poorer classes, seemingly implying that young men and women from poorer families are socio-economically “forced” into the military.

I have searched all over DOD and websites; I see nothing on detailed socio-economic data on enlistees and officers. Other searches (e.g., Google) give quotes but no statistics.

I enlisted in the 70’s when the military went all volunteer, and I found the ranks certainly filled with working class people, but there were a few at each end, upper and poorer classes. I was from a blue collar working class family.

My son serves today, where the requirements to be allowed in are relatively high to when I went in. No police record, B average in High School, etc. I visited his unit for a week (a Marine infantry battalion) and from many informal conversations, I did not note a theme of poverty in background, but rather from hard working blue collar families in general (with, again, notable exceptions at both ends of the spectrum), with the motivation for enlistment not being escape from poverty but rather to do something interesting, beneficial (skills or college funds), different or exciting before entering the work force.

Anyroads, does any one know of reliable statistical data on the socio-economic background of those who serve, enlisted and officers?

2

No cite, but I know that minorities and the very poor tend to gravitate to support MOSs (where they can acquire job skills) rather than combat units (which tend to be working or middle class)

3

I can’t answer the OP with hard facts… but I can give my general sense of when I was in the US Army.

I was in the Army from 1989 through 1996, and the first two years were as a reservist.

Reservists: pretty much everyone was employed – maybe not rich, but definitely self-sustaining. Generally older and more mature and more established than the regular army folks. 'Course I’m talking enlisted here, since officers are 99% college educated.

Regular Army: I’d been dirt poor growing up. Below blue collar. At the time I joined, my family was finally working-class blue collar by about three years. Now the thing is, not everyone is honest about their backgrounds. I never knew a single person that was from a welfare family. Although, I’m sure I really did know a great number of people that were from welfare families. Additionally, a good number are from military families – it’s what they know all their life, so they continue on. During early training, you already know who all the enlisted college graduates are – they’re usually SP4’s (at worst PFC’s) while you’re just an E1 or E2.

Overall: the Kennedy’s and Bush’s become officers. Quantatatively speaking, there are very few officers.

Enlistment: even as “far back” as 1989, they wouldn’t just take anyone. No such thing a jail-or-army, if you know what I mean.

Me: I grew poor. My re-married mother brought me into working class. But I was mostly an A student – 16th in my class of 450, and not even trying. I joined the reserves and went to basic training between my junior and senior years of high school, just because it seemed really, really cool, and the boy scouts had already indoctrinated me :). There was no real need, it just seemed fun. Hell, it wasn’t even patriotism, and being the reserves, it wasn’t money. But… I finally went regular army not because of poverty, but because of a girl – I was young, stupid, and just wanted to get out of town (no, she wasn’t pregnant, at least not by me). So I went. Overall, I credit the Army with my sucess now, and especially the timing of getting out. I do super for an uneducated army dude, and if my wife worked we’d probably be upper-middle class. But I notice that in the rest of the neighborhood, they’re all two-worker families. Coming from poorness, I know I have a degree of lack of self-esteem for financial reason. When they ask me at 7-11 or the barber shop what I do, I lie and try to “fit in” better. But at the same time I’d feel self-conscious driving around in something smaller than a full-sized car or something with rust on it.

I didn’t want to get into too many personal details, but, I think it helps explain the Army and Army people.

4

I think it was the opposite – all the “stupid” people became cooks and combat people. To get a support role, you had to get great scores on the ASVAB. Unfortunately my mind is screwed up, I guess – I seem to equate “poor” with “non-educated” and “not-poor” with educated. Poor schools equals bad schools, you know. And my opinion is bad, since as I said, I was poor but intelligent. I took a support position because I didn’t want to get shot at!

5

Balt: Furt’s assessment seems to be right, as least as far as race goes. When I visited my son’s unit (an infantry battalion), I was truly astonished to see only a few black Marines out of about 900 personnel. I asked my son about it, and he told me that African Americans tended to take jobs that gave outside the military skills – office, technical, etc.

The DoD website actually does have statistics on that: the vast majority of combat arms are white, then hispanic – blacks volunteer mostly for support units, and especially, MOS’s that provide training for an outside job.

6

Anecdotal evidence only – I was in the Navy from 1981 - 1986. Most of the people I knew during my enlistment were working or middle class, with a few upper and a few lower. I knew one woman who came from a very wealthy family and 2 guys who came from very poor backgrounds. The wealthy girl did one enlistment and then got out and married a pilot. The one poor guy I knew well made it a career. He came from real poverty, BTW – his mother was a welfare mom with addiction problems and his dad was in and out of jail. He saw the service as a way out of his hellish situation. He enlisted immediately after high school and was apparently a real super-star. I didn’t meet him until he was a Chief Petty Officer select (we didn’t work together, we were neighbors). He was a nine-year Chief (very good) and made LDO (Limited Duty Officer) and got a commision during the time we were neighbors. He was married to an equally professional sailor – she made Chief shortly before they moved away, and my husband (who was also an LDO) heard that she was commisioned a few years later. She cam from a better situation than her husband – her mom was a postal worker, I remember. Most of the other people I knew, as I said, were working or middle class. Lots of career military families; city or county workers (I remember several other people whose parents were postal workers; one guy whose dad was a garbageman; one woman whose dad was a cop; several people with civil service parents), a couple of small business owners (one man’s mother owned a small beauty shop and another whose parents owned one of those drop-off photo development kiosks) and a couple of people whose parents were teachers. My own husband came from the poorer end of the working class continuum, BTW. His parents were both factory workers and their family struggled financially. In my case, my dad was a career sailor (retired as a Warrant Officer) who worked as a skilled millwright at a factory in his second career.

As far as officers go – I just asked my husband for his impression (as I said, he was an LDO who did 14 years commisioned time). He said it was, in his opinion, about the same as with enlisted people, but one notch up. In other words, the “norm” is that most officers come from middle or upper-middle class backgrounds (vice working to middle class for enlisted people) with a few working class or lower and a few from wealthier backgrounds. And, as with enlisted people, there are lots of officers from military families.

The implication that “young men and women from poorer families are socio-economically ‘forced’ into the military” certainly has never resonated with me. I never knew one person who felt the military was their only choice. My old neighbor told me once that he could have gone to college if he’d preferred – he was a good student and there were scholarships and loans available to kids from his neighborhood who qualified. But he didn’t want to – he wanted to travel, meet new people and make a contribution. And, he wanted to get away from his home and be his own person. So he joined the Navy and it was a good choice for both him and the service.