Three of the four candidates in the upcoming election have a son who has either served in Iraq or soon will: Jimmy McCain, Beau Biden, and Track Palin. (And the children of the fourth candidate, Barack Obama, are a bit too young for military duty.) So 50 percent of the enlisted recruits (i.e., not including the officers’ corps) come from families in the top 40 percent of the income distribution, while only 10 percent come from the bottom 20 percent. It is worth noting that the income information here is not perfect: the data do not include actual family income for each recruit, but rather use the median household income of the recruit’s home census tract. But still, one look at that graph tells you that the conventional image of a military full of poor kids doesn’t reflect the reality.

Looks like all those who don't want recruiters to have access to our poor high school students have gotten it wrong. Apparently the poor are not enlisting anyway. Or maybe more accurately, without access to the information available from recruiters some of these poor high school kids will never realize the opportunities that are available in the military. This does hint at the fact that patriotism does (for some) have a role to play in what they choose as a career. Would you join the military for love of country?

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