JacobG18
09-30-2010, 09:12 AM
(Reuters) - The all-volunteer U.S. military has performed well during nearly a decade of continuous combat but shifting trends threaten to transform it into a force very different from the society it protects, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday.
Gates, in a speech to students at Duke University, said despite racial disparities in some ranks and specialties, the U.S. armed forces are now broadly representative of the country as a whole, drawing predominantly from the working and middle classes.
But members of the military are increasingly based in and recruited from rural and small-town areas of the South and mountainous West, partly as a result of cost-cutting that has led to the closure of military facilities in the Northeast and West Coast, he said.
"Basing changes in recent years have moved a significant percentage of the Army to posts in just five states: Texas, Washington, Georgia, Kentucky and here in North Carolina," Gates said, adding that young people are more likely to join the military if they know someone who has served.
"For otherwise rational environmental and budgetary reasons, many military facilities in the Northeast and on the West Coast have been shut down, leaving a void of relationships and understanding of the armed forces in their wake," he said.
Gates said the trend also affected training and recruitment of new officers. Alabama, with only 5 million people, has 10 Army reserve officer training programs in its colleges and universities. By comparison, the Los Angeles metropolitan area, with 12 million people, has only four programs and the Chicago metro area, with 9 million people, has three.
"There is a risk over time of developing a cadre of military leaders that politically, culturally and geographically have less and less in common with the people they have sworn to defend," he said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68S5SV20100929
Gates, in a speech to students at Duke University, said despite racial disparities in some ranks and specialties, the U.S. armed forces are now broadly representative of the country as a whole, drawing predominantly from the working and middle classes.
But members of the military are increasingly based in and recruited from rural and small-town areas of the South and mountainous West, partly as a result of cost-cutting that has led to the closure of military facilities in the Northeast and West Coast, he said.
"Basing changes in recent years have moved a significant percentage of the Army to posts in just five states: Texas, Washington, Georgia, Kentucky and here in North Carolina," Gates said, adding that young people are more likely to join the military if they know someone who has served.
"For otherwise rational environmental and budgetary reasons, many military facilities in the Northeast and on the West Coast have been shut down, leaving a void of relationships and understanding of the armed forces in their wake," he said.
Gates said the trend also affected training and recruitment of new officers. Alabama, with only 5 million people, has 10 Army reserve officer training programs in its colleges and universities. By comparison, the Los Angeles metropolitan area, with 12 million people, has only four programs and the Chicago metro area, with 9 million people, has three.
"There is a risk over time of developing a cadre of military leaders that politically, culturally and geographically have less and less in common with the people they have sworn to defend," he said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68S5SV20100929