thedrifter
03-17-08, 06:51 AM
Fair share?
Rural areas are losing many more soldiers in the Iraq war than cities and some are wondering if the disparity is too great
By Douglas Fischer
STAFF WRITER
Article Launched: 03/17/2008 03:02:25 AM PDT
Five years into the war in Iraq, not one service member from Oakland has been killed in battle. Sixty miles to the east, the ranching and bedroom community of Tracy, one-fifth Oakland's size, has lost seven soldiers to the war.
San Francisco has had three of its residents perish, while the Central Valley towns of Modesto, Stockton and Bakersfield -- with a combined population equal to that of San Francisco --have buried 20 men and women. Detroit, a city of 900,000, has lost one, the same as Ismay, Mont., with a population of 26.
It's a pattern that is repeating throughout nation: a disproportionate share of the war's casualties hail from rural areas.
An analysis of Department of Defense enlistment data from 2001, 2003 and 2006 suggests recruiting grounds in inner-city neighborhoods across the country have dried up. The lists, obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request, show the hometown and race of recruits nationwide who have never served in the military.
Those tables show that 2006 enlistment in cities with more than 300,000 people dropped, on average, 15 percent from levels from before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Overall enlistment among blacks and whites is down, particularly outside the South, while Latino enlistments have increased modestly. Rural areas remain stable.
The result is that per-capita enlistment today in the nation's smallest cities is almost half as high as in the nation's largest: 12.4 recruits per 10,000 residents in small towns versus 8.7 recruits in the cities, according to 2006 recruitment statistics.
The Iraq and Afghanistan wars are being fought by the men and women of largely pro-military small-town America.
And so perhaps it is no surprise that when a roadside bomb rips through a Humvee on a patrol outside of Baghdad, or an RPG plows into a Marine patrol in Fallujah, the news of death hits hardest in rural America.
"This country isn't at war," said Karen Meredith, a Mountain View mom whose son, Lt. Ken Ballard, died in Najaf, Iraq, in 2004. "It's the military and the military families where the burden of the war is. ... We've asked these guys time and time again to step up, and they do."
Cities largely immune
Nearly 4,000 service members have died in the war since fighting began March 19, 2003. Almost 2,400 of the dead hailed from cities and towns with a population of 80,000 or less. Meanwhile, 537 have died from cities larger than 300,000.
Put another way: For every 100,000 people living in a large city in this country, one service member has died in Iraq. For every 100,000 people living in this country's smallest cities and towns, two troops have perished.
These disparities leave demographers puzzled. The war is splitting the nation. At a time when all Americans are expected to sacrifice, the roughly 64 million people living in the country's largest cities appear to be turning their backs on military service.
Oakland and Tracy -- with 2006 populations of 397,000 and 80,000, respectively -- offer a stark contrast.
In 2001, the last recruiting year before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks changed the American psyche, 135 recruits came from Oakland while 64 came from Tracy. But, by 2006, with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars raging, Oakland had 89 recruits, while 91 from Tracy signed on.
The reasons anyone goes off to war are complex and often impossible to explain. On one side: pride of country, desire to serve, family tradition. On another: lack of options, need for cash, yearning for a better future.
Whatever the reasons, the military's recruiting message has always resonated better in rural areas.
Military moms almost without exception cite patriotism and upbringing as reasons for this. But sense of duty alone doesn't explain why more rural residents are entering the military, said Tim Marema, vice president of Whitesburg, Ky.-based Center for Rural Strategies, who has studied enlistment data and similarly concluded rural soldiers account for a disproportionately high share of casualties.
"When you look at the economic and death statistics, you just can't ignore that there's a huge economic opportunity factor. ... We've set up a system for our nation where our young people have to leave rural areas to participate in the economy."
For some rural residents, military service is a sure way out, Marema said. And that's unfair.
"For young people who want to choose the military, good for them. Our nation needs them," Marema said. "But it shouldn't be a choice made under duress. It should be a choice, and, in the sense of fairness, we would hope all our young people would have the same opportunities as they look at how they want their lives to unfold."
Marema wants young people everywhere to have a fair shake. The fact that small-town youths continue to enlist in a wartime military while city residents turn their backs suggests they do not, he said.
To a military mom, that's an insult, pure and simple.
A son goes to war
No mother forgets the moment a child announces an intention to go to war.
For Deborah Johns, it was a quiet December evening during Christmas break in her home in the Sacramento suburb of Roseville. Her son, a straight-A student, asked her to go with him for a drive.
Silence hung in the air between mother and son. Then William pulled up in front of a Marine recruiting station.
He wanted to join. He needed her to sign him into the service. He was 17.
"I said, 'Son, if I do that, you know you're probably going to a war.' And he said, 'I know that, Mom.'"
Johns signed William into the Marines half an hour later, on Dec. 19, 2001.
The enlistment disparity has nothing to do with economics, Johns believes, and everything to do with attitude. William traded a four-year scholarship for boot camp. "When you go to rural communities, they have a sense of God," she said. "They have a sense of service."
Johns grew up in a Navy family and is immensely proud of her son. She didn't want William in the infantry, of course, but she understood she couldn't get in his way, either. Today, he is a Recon Marine, one of the most elite troops in the U.S. military, and on his third tour in Iraq. On Wednesday, the war's anniversary, William turns 24.
Black recruits plunge
In America's recruiting halls, there's little mystery or worry. Rural America has always been overrepresented; the South has long had a proclivity for military service.
War has made recruiting difficult, no question, said Douglas Smith, a civilian who has been with Army Recruiting Command since 1981. But all branches of the active-service military are making recruiting targets. Since 1980, Smith added, the Army has fallen short just twice: 1999 and 2005.
But something has happened among African-Americans.
The military tracks closely the attitudes of so-called "key influencers" -- parents, teachers, coaches, ministers -- who play important roles in helping youths shape their futures.
In 2001, influencers of all ethnicities viewed the military equally favorably. That dropped as the war started, but it has fallen faster among blacks. While views across all ethnicities have bounced back recently, African-American influencers still remain less likely to recommend military service than their white or Latino counterparts.
Department of Defense polling suggests African-American youths, compared with whites and Latinos, are least supportive of the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, the least likely to feel the war is justified, and the most disapproving of the government's handling of foreign affairs. Add the key influencers' trend, and it is no surprise recruitment among African-Americans has taken more of a hit than that of Latinos or whites.
Exact comparisons of the changing racial makeup within recruiting classes is impossible: Department of Defense enlistment data for 2006 lists as "unknown" the race of nearly 11,100 recruits, 5 percent of the class and far more than in previous years.
Still, the Army aims to reflect American society, and even with the recent drop-off, blacks still make up a disproportionately high share of the force.
"We do know the war has been difficult," Smith said. "We're having to reassure potential recruits and their families with a balanced view of what the risks are to serving in the Army."
"You still have that element of risk, and that might be a hard thing for a parent to overcome," he said. "But there's a lot to be said that we've still made our numbers."
Choosing life's path
The scent poured out the front doors of West Oakland's Morning Star Baptist Church on a crisp winter afternoon. Ribs, chicken and hot links were piled high on hot plates in the back during a community fundraiser.
The conversation around the table was about Iraq.
The Rev. Ray Williams, the Rev. Anthony Hudson and pastor's assistant Eric Barfield were debating what they would say to a young man who intended to join the military.
Williams and Hudson both served in the Army in the 1960s; both respect the institution. "The military taught a lot of boys how to be men," Hopkins said.
But both men would counsel that a youth carefully consider his reasons for enlisting.
"If he says to better himself, I'm going to say, 'There are opportunities for you, but there are consequences,'" Hopkins said. "But if you're going in there because you ain't got nothing else, I'm going to say there are probably better options for you."
That's demographer Marema's point. Even in gritty Oakland, youths can tap a deeper social and economic base than young people in rural America.
Williams agrees: "The military for the most part, it's southern whites and poor urban blacks. I don't think it's their philosophical bent that has (blacks) not going. It's their social opportunities.
"There are enough competing social programs out there now that one doesn't have to go to the military to be a part of that."
But do they offer the same opportunities?
Javier Tenorio was a below-average high school student in Lodi, population 62,450, when he joined the Marines shortly before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He needed discipline to get his life on track.
He got it, along with two tours in Iraq.
Today, he's an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, an outcome he never envisioned in high school. Nothing but the Marines, he said, could have changed his life so dramatically.
That such an avenue is, for whatever reason, cut off to urban youths is a shame, he said.
"People shouldn't go into the military because of money. They shouldn't go into the military because their parents told them," he said.
"They should go into the military because they want the discipline to become better Americans."
Editor's note: The U.S. military has been fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq for more than six years, by far its longest combat commitment since the Vietnam War. The wars' duration has strained the all-volunteer force, including its ability to attract recruits. The Army in particular has had to bolster efforts to fill its ranks. MediaNews analyzed three years of data from the Department of Defense, census and other sources to identify areas where recruits have been plentiful or scarce. Recruiting data from 2001, 2003 and 2006 provide key views from before and after the start of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The data only includes recruits who had not served before in the U.S. military.
Some Department of Defense records could not be included in the analysis because of data errors. For example, some records listed invalid ZIP codes for recruits.
Ellie
Rural areas are losing many more soldiers in the Iraq war than cities and some are wondering if the disparity is too great
By Douglas Fischer
STAFF WRITER
Article Launched: 03/17/2008 03:02:25 AM PDT
Five years into the war in Iraq, not one service member from Oakland has been killed in battle. Sixty miles to the east, the ranching and bedroom community of Tracy, one-fifth Oakland's size, has lost seven soldiers to the war.
San Francisco has had three of its residents perish, while the Central Valley towns of Modesto, Stockton and Bakersfield -- with a combined population equal to that of San Francisco --have buried 20 men and women. Detroit, a city of 900,000, has lost one, the same as Ismay, Mont., with a population of 26.
It's a pattern that is repeating throughout nation: a disproportionate share of the war's casualties hail from rural areas.
An analysis of Department of Defense enlistment data from 2001, 2003 and 2006 suggests recruiting grounds in inner-city neighborhoods across the country have dried up. The lists, obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request, show the hometown and race of recruits nationwide who have never served in the military.
Those tables show that 2006 enlistment in cities with more than 300,000 people dropped, on average, 15 percent from levels from before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Overall enlistment among blacks and whites is down, particularly outside the South, while Latino enlistments have increased modestly. Rural areas remain stable.
The result is that per-capita enlistment today in the nation's smallest cities is almost half as high as in the nation's largest: 12.4 recruits per 10,000 residents in small towns versus 8.7 recruits in the cities, according to 2006 recruitment statistics.
The Iraq and Afghanistan wars are being fought by the men and women of largely pro-military small-town America.
And so perhaps it is no surprise that when a roadside bomb rips through a Humvee on a patrol outside of Baghdad, or an RPG plows into a Marine patrol in Fallujah, the news of death hits hardest in rural America.
"This country isn't at war," said Karen Meredith, a Mountain View mom whose son, Lt. Ken Ballard, died in Najaf, Iraq, in 2004. "It's the military and the military families where the burden of the war is. ... We've asked these guys time and time again to step up, and they do."
Cities largely immune
Nearly 4,000 service members have died in the war since fighting began March 19, 2003. Almost 2,400 of the dead hailed from cities and towns with a population of 80,000 or less. Meanwhile, 537 have died from cities larger than 300,000.
Put another way: For every 100,000 people living in a large city in this country, one service member has died in Iraq. For every 100,000 people living in this country's smallest cities and towns, two troops have perished.
These disparities leave demographers puzzled. The war is splitting the nation. At a time when all Americans are expected to sacrifice, the roughly 64 million people living in the country's largest cities appear to be turning their backs on military service.
Oakland and Tracy -- with 2006 populations of 397,000 and 80,000, respectively -- offer a stark contrast.
In 2001, the last recruiting year before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks changed the American psyche, 135 recruits came from Oakland while 64 came from Tracy. But, by 2006, with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars raging, Oakland had 89 recruits, while 91 from Tracy signed on.
The reasons anyone goes off to war are complex and often impossible to explain. On one side: pride of country, desire to serve, family tradition. On another: lack of options, need for cash, yearning for a better future.
Whatever the reasons, the military's recruiting message has always resonated better in rural areas.
Military moms almost without exception cite patriotism and upbringing as reasons for this. But sense of duty alone doesn't explain why more rural residents are entering the military, said Tim Marema, vice president of Whitesburg, Ky.-based Center for Rural Strategies, who has studied enlistment data and similarly concluded rural soldiers account for a disproportionately high share of casualties.
"When you look at the economic and death statistics, you just can't ignore that there's a huge economic opportunity factor. ... We've set up a system for our nation where our young people have to leave rural areas to participate in the economy."
For some rural residents, military service is a sure way out, Marema said. And that's unfair.
"For young people who want to choose the military, good for them. Our nation needs them," Marema said. "But it shouldn't be a choice made under duress. It should be a choice, and, in the sense of fairness, we would hope all our young people would have the same opportunities as they look at how they want their lives to unfold."
Marema wants young people everywhere to have a fair shake. The fact that small-town youths continue to enlist in a wartime military while city residents turn their backs suggests they do not, he said.
To a military mom, that's an insult, pure and simple.
A son goes to war
No mother forgets the moment a child announces an intention to go to war.
For Deborah Johns, it was a quiet December evening during Christmas break in her home in the Sacramento suburb of Roseville. Her son, a straight-A student, asked her to go with him for a drive.
Silence hung in the air between mother and son. Then William pulled up in front of a Marine recruiting station.
He wanted to join. He needed her to sign him into the service. He was 17.
"I said, 'Son, if I do that, you know you're probably going to a war.' And he said, 'I know that, Mom.'"
Johns signed William into the Marines half an hour later, on Dec. 19, 2001.
The enlistment disparity has nothing to do with economics, Johns believes, and everything to do with attitude. William traded a four-year scholarship for boot camp. "When you go to rural communities, they have a sense of God," she said. "They have a sense of service."
Johns grew up in a Navy family and is immensely proud of her son. She didn't want William in the infantry, of course, but she understood she couldn't get in his way, either. Today, he is a Recon Marine, one of the most elite troops in the U.S. military, and on his third tour in Iraq. On Wednesday, the war's anniversary, William turns 24.
Black recruits plunge
In America's recruiting halls, there's little mystery or worry. Rural America has always been overrepresented; the South has long had a proclivity for military service.
War has made recruiting difficult, no question, said Douglas Smith, a civilian who has been with Army Recruiting Command since 1981. But all branches of the active-service military are making recruiting targets. Since 1980, Smith added, the Army has fallen short just twice: 1999 and 2005.
But something has happened among African-Americans.
The military tracks closely the attitudes of so-called "key influencers" -- parents, teachers, coaches, ministers -- who play important roles in helping youths shape their futures.
In 2001, influencers of all ethnicities viewed the military equally favorably. That dropped as the war started, but it has fallen faster among blacks. While views across all ethnicities have bounced back recently, African-American influencers still remain less likely to recommend military service than their white or Latino counterparts.
Department of Defense polling suggests African-American youths, compared with whites and Latinos, are least supportive of the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, the least likely to feel the war is justified, and the most disapproving of the government's handling of foreign affairs. Add the key influencers' trend, and it is no surprise recruitment among African-Americans has taken more of a hit than that of Latinos or whites.
Exact comparisons of the changing racial makeup within recruiting classes is impossible: Department of Defense enlistment data for 2006 lists as "unknown" the race of nearly 11,100 recruits, 5 percent of the class and far more than in previous years.
Still, the Army aims to reflect American society, and even with the recent drop-off, blacks still make up a disproportionately high share of the force.
"We do know the war has been difficult," Smith said. "We're having to reassure potential recruits and their families with a balanced view of what the risks are to serving in the Army."
"You still have that element of risk, and that might be a hard thing for a parent to overcome," he said. "But there's a lot to be said that we've still made our numbers."
Choosing life's path
The scent poured out the front doors of West Oakland's Morning Star Baptist Church on a crisp winter afternoon. Ribs, chicken and hot links were piled high on hot plates in the back during a community fundraiser.
The conversation around the table was about Iraq.
The Rev. Ray Williams, the Rev. Anthony Hudson and pastor's assistant Eric Barfield were debating what they would say to a young man who intended to join the military.
Williams and Hudson both served in the Army in the 1960s; both respect the institution. "The military taught a lot of boys how to be men," Hopkins said.
But both men would counsel that a youth carefully consider his reasons for enlisting.
"If he says to better himself, I'm going to say, 'There are opportunities for you, but there are consequences,'" Hopkins said. "But if you're going in there because you ain't got nothing else, I'm going to say there are probably better options for you."
That's demographer Marema's point. Even in gritty Oakland, youths can tap a deeper social and economic base than young people in rural America.
Williams agrees: "The military for the most part, it's southern whites and poor urban blacks. I don't think it's their philosophical bent that has (blacks) not going. It's their social opportunities.
"There are enough competing social programs out there now that one doesn't have to go to the military to be a part of that."
But do they offer the same opportunities?
Javier Tenorio was a below-average high school student in Lodi, population 62,450, when he joined the Marines shortly before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He needed discipline to get his life on track.
He got it, along with two tours in Iraq.
Today, he's an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, an outcome he never envisioned in high school. Nothing but the Marines, he said, could have changed his life so dramatically.
That such an avenue is, for whatever reason, cut off to urban youths is a shame, he said.
"People shouldn't go into the military because of money. They shouldn't go into the military because their parents told them," he said.
"They should go into the military because they want the discipline to become better Americans."
Editor's note: The U.S. military has been fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq for more than six years, by far its longest combat commitment since the Vietnam War. The wars' duration has strained the all-volunteer force, including its ability to attract recruits. The Army in particular has had to bolster efforts to fill its ranks. MediaNews analyzed three years of data from the Department of Defense, census and other sources to identify areas where recruits have been plentiful or scarce. Recruiting data from 2001, 2003 and 2006 provide key views from before and after the start of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The data only includes recruits who had not served before in the U.S. military.
Some Department of Defense records could not be included in the analysis because of data errors. For example, some records listed invalid ZIP codes for recruits.
Ellie