By It just seems like the journalist in the below article is trying to stir up something that the facts don’t support:
There aren’t a lot of black faces in this year’s Heroes special section. Unfortunately, that’s not a surprise.
Every year, we try to present a diverse selection of battlefield stories, to best reflect the makeup of the military. We seek representatives from each of the services. And we want to make sure that every hero we feature isn’t a white male.
And, in most respects, this section succeeds in that. We rarely have to search for Hispanic troops to profile. We’ve had trouble finding women, but that’s not unexpected given the Defense Department’s prohibition against women in combat.
But finding African-Americans who have received valor awards has often been difficult. It has meant scouring other newspapers and blogs looking specifically for black heroes. It has meant tactless last-minute calls to public affairs officers asking for help identifying “troops with heroic stories, but they have to be black.” [Stars & Stripes]
Click the link to read the rest of the article but basically it explains what many of us in the military already knew, blacks receive less medals because fewer of them are serving in Infantry units. In fact according to the above graph white servicemembers are well over represented in the Infantry and black servicemembers are underrepresented. I pointed this out four years ago when some Democrat Congressmen were advocating for a draft because of the Vietnam era belief that black servicemembers are dying for a white man’s war in Iraq. Of course the statistic didn’t support this belief and in fact the number of black servicemembers in the infantry continue to drop while white servicemember numbers continue to go up.
The article goes one to make the ridiculous claim that racism could be what is causing the low number of black servicemembers from getting valor medals despite the clear statistics showing otherwise. Throwing in the racism card was totally unneeded in my opinion and really took away from the article. Anyway could you imagine what the reaction would be from the usual suspects if the statistic showed the opposite trend?
3:37 am on June 17th, 2011 1
“And we want to make sure that every hero we feature isn’t a white male.”
If all the actual heroes happen to be white then why not go with that? Why intentionally misrepresent reality? They all AMERICANS!!!!
5:22 am on June 17th, 2011 2
Stars and Stripes is like the NYT… Not fit to line a birdcage or wrap the offal left after you clean a fish…
Conservatives are “under-represented” in legacy media… No pie charts for that, though…
6:07 am on June 17th, 2011 3
It’s a cover your ass before being called racist paranoia article.
6:27 am on June 17th, 2011 4
Wonder what ratio of pulitzer prize winning journalists are black? Clearly journalism is a racist enterprise!
From the article: ”
We rarely have to search for Hispanic troops to profile. (snip)
But finding African-Americans who have received valor awards has often been difficult. It has meant scouring other newspapers and blogs looking specifically for black heroes. It has meant tactless last-minute calls to public affairs officers asking for help identifying “troops with heroic stories, but they have to be black.”
No kidding? It’s comparatively easy to find a Hernandez or Gonzalez? Maybe we should label black people so everyone will know immediately what their race is upon hearing their name! What a tool.
8:42 am on June 17th, 2011 5
I’m a nurse at a VA hospital where, among other things, we treat PTSD on an inpatient residential unit. The younger vets returning from Iraqistan are overwhelmingly white. The populaton of older vets is much more diverse. In my observations there have been only a handful of black vets out of the hundreds treated here for PTSD. Mostly all Army and Marine infantry. A few hispanics. I would guess that 98% are white. I noticed this a couple of years ago and after digging around, I found that minorities are signing up for MOS’s in support, that have a much better chance of transitioning into a civilian sector job. The white guys are signing up for combat arms and then find that there isn’t much of a need for a mortarman or machine gunner back in their hometown. Unemployment in returning vets is quite a problem. But when someone joins the Army because they couldn’t find a job in their area, sign up to be an 11B, and then return to where they came from with a CIB, they’re right back where they started, except now they’ve got addtional issues.
9:51 am on June 17th, 2011 6
To add to what Dragonfly posted, I was a support soldier. My units were always very “diverse”.
When I would go to Supply, I sometimes didn’t see an Anglo/American working there.
Nothing wrong with any of that. But don’t expect “valor” handing out repair parts fixing aircraft radios or working the Motor hole.
ALL of the above are necessary skills and trades that allow those that risk and sometimes lose their lives to function at a high level.
It is a volunteer military. Every race, color and creed can sign up for 11B. But no females until you can carry a ruck and march. Which means no females.
2:56 pm on June 17th, 2011 7
Speaking of medals, here’s a list of the top leaders in the Airforce today for those interested:
COS: Transport pilot with not even one Air Medal
Vice COS: Fighter pilot with not even one Air Medal
Asst Vice COS: Space Command guy with no Air Medals
DCS Personnnel: B-52 pilot with no Air Medals
DCS Ops: Fighter Pilot with no Air Medals
Special Ops: Special Ops pilot with ONE Air Medal
PACAF: Fighter Pilot with TWO DFCs
Space Command: Space background with no Air Medals
AMC: Airlift pilot with ONE Air Medal
USAFE: Airlift pilot with no Air Medals
ACC (used to be TAC): Bomber pilot with no Air Medals
AETC (used to be ATC): Tanker pilot with no Air Medals
AFMC: ATC pilot with no air Medals AF
Global Strike Command: Missileer with no Air Medals
The top 14 leadership positions in the USAF today have two DFCs and two Air Medals among them. Basically virtually no one in the top tier has any combat experience whatsoever.
12:28 am on June 18th, 2011 8
#17 …and of those top 14, how many are black?