Posted on 07/20/2005 1:08:09 PM PDT by neverdem
WHICH American communities pay the highest price for the war in Iraq? A look at the demographics of soldiers killed reveals that Iraq is not the war of any one race or region. Rather, it is rural America's war.
Altogether, a nearly equal percentage of Americans aged 18 to 54 live in counties with a million or more inhabitants as live in counties of 100,000 or fewer. And yet, of the soldiers who have died in Iraq, 342 came from densely populated counties while 536 came from smaller ones. Derived from Pentagon and census data, this chart shows the Iraqi war death rates for every 100,000 people ages 18 to 54 by the size of their county's population.
The difference is visible not just in the size of a soldier's county of origin, but also in its location. Counties disconnected from urban areas tend to have higher death rates, regardless of population size. Small rural counties have a death rate nearly twice that of counties that have the same population but happen to be part of metropolitan areas.
Why should this be? It's not that Iraqi insurgents are singling out rural soldiers, or that commanders are putting them at particular risk. Rather, the armed forces themselves must be disproportionately drawn from rural communities - a fact not immediately discernible from recruitment data, which report the race, age and education of recruits, but not their home counties.
This is above all an economics story. Military studies consistently find that a poor economy is a boon to recruiting. The higher rate of deaths from rural counties likely reflects sparse opportunities for young people in those places.
When the Iraq war memorials go up in years to come, these monuments to heroism and sacrifice will be found less often in thriving urban centers...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It could be that urban soldiers tend to have more street smarts, and in a war that is being fought in the streets that is a material advantage to survival.
Neither are willing or able to step up and do the job of defending America.
I'm sure the New York Times really gives a damn that rural people are dying.
They are recycling this stuff again.
Could it be that rural counties are more conservative and patriotic?
I don't suppose they are seeking to balance things out by sending money out from NYC to sparsely populated counties, are they?
I hope the graph for total active duty personnel looks roughly the same as the death rate graph or they've drawn the wrong conclusion.
"Could it be that rural counties are more conservative and patriotic?"
Tell him what he wins, Johnny!
Utter nonsense. Read the Art of War by Machiavelli. The best soldiers come from the countryside. The worst from the city. When I was drafted, I met a hick from the hills of Kentucky. He wore coke bottle glasses which made him look helpless as any other four-eyed wimp I met growing up in the city. At the rifle range, I watch him constantly hit 300 meter targets. It turns out that hillbillies know how to shoot, hunt, and survive.
Good bet.
Granted it's not like you are talking to a New Yorker or anything, but I am a city dweller and so I do take offense to the comment you have made above.
Now, as for this whole issue of rural v urban
It's a NYT smokescreen to try and raise a sort of rural populism to their cause that the left assembled from 1880-1950
It ain't gonnna happen this time around though, so their efforts are being wasted.
This is nothing more than the usual bull@#%* way of trying to drive a wedge by using class warfare. This time it's thinnly disguised. Rural soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines have allways been the majority as long as I've been on active duty. So what?!!! Who cares?!!! That is just the way it is. We have an all volunteer force, these just happen to be the people that chose to volunteer and serve their country, and 99.9% of them do it honorably!!! The NY Times needs to STFU and fix itself!!
I'd say your answer is most probably correct.
JUST KIDDING!!!
Actually, rural recruits will tend to gravitate towards the army, for whatever reason, where recruits from more populated areas will gravitate towards the other branches.
Rural soldiers=White Boys that join the infantry to fight.
Urban soldiers=Minority kids that join the military to get out of the inner city hell hole.
Also, how many inner city utes are eligible for service with criminal records?
While the author feigns concern for rural communities, this statement shows his bias for urban areas.
Red Counties - Blue Counties
Comparisons with Vietnam are really not accurate. That was a war against a tough enemy who were causing hundreds of dead/wounded per month. In September 1968, there were over 2100 dead.
The terrorists who occasionally are blowing things up in no way compare to the NVA. This is in large measure why we can get away with occupying the country with a volunteer force where the gals are serving in uniform while "George P" is at law school.
Ok, this post is full of stereotypes that I don't even know if I should dignify this with a response, but alas I will
First, despite what a bunch of morons with their own various reasons would have you believe, the word "urban" is not synoynmous with "minorities".
Urban is simply a description given to a certain type of organization of society, namely that of the focus city of any given metropolitan area.
And for the belief that rural soldiers would always be European-American, to this I say
Macon County, AL approximately 24,000 residents. 85% black
Issaquena County, MS approximately 2,200. 62% black
And, if you want to really get rural
Kenedy County, TX, approximately 400 people, 79% hispanic.
Better and faster medical care.
Wanna bet that the original story concept or assignment was to prove that it was poor blacks who were bearing a disproportionate burden by acting as cannon fodder, and that the reporters and editors were miffed that the data did not support their preconceptions? No doubt they were then faced with the typical New York Times dilemma - do we resort to the outright lie and go ahead with the original story line even though it is not supported by the facts, or do we huddle for a few moments and devise a different way to spin the facts in a way that is still calculated to do maximum damage by portraying the United States as a land of limited opportunity and no hope...
whatta farce! since when have urban "intellectuals" given a damn about rural people?
Uh, I hate to bust your bubble, but there are many of poor blacks in rural counties. For example, the Black Belt of Alabama, and the general region of the Mississippi Delta. I don't think the argument can be made that Lowndes County is somehow a pillar of urban sophistication by any means.
Exactly!!! The NYT would NEVER think of this. Class warfare is the only warfare the Times is familiar with personally. How very ignorant.
As an aside, since you seem to be fluent regarding demography, is there a major urban area aside from Salt Lake City where the average young man is likely to be white?
We at the New York Times Company know nothing about the military other than that we loathe it. From deep within that cocoon of ignorance we offer the following half-baked nonsense:
Nashville and Jacksonville immediately come to mind.
One addition, according the the U.S Census Bureau, Kennedy County is majority white.
If you want to go for "white" in the traditional sense of "white", the correct term is European-American.
I only did ten years in the Corps...most of that in the infantry. I can only tell you what I saw, which was white kids join for adventure, most inner city minority kids join to get job skills.
Why are they using counties? Many cities or urban areas cover several counties. If scan counties listed by pop in 2000 you'll find a lot of cities in the 500,000 to 1 million category which might explain the dip in the deaths. (http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t29/tab03a.pdf)
Hate to burst your bubble, but there are whites in the "inner city"
Being white doesn't automatically mean you are rural or suburban, just as being black doesnt automatically mean you live in a housing project in the ghetto.
All inner city means is downtown, and area immediately adjacent to downtown. Someone else said this about their city and the same goes for mine, most of the problems you see here are in the areas just outside the "inner-city", basically, the middle to outer city.
Alabama does not belong on this list, because it's not comparable to any of the states on this list.
I think unemployment in Mobile County is in the 5% range, but I know in the county just to the north of us, it is above 15%
I wonder what those 'inner city utes' who are in Iraq right now fighting would reply to your post. I also wonder if you would have the guts to go up to them and ask them if they were there trying to escape 'inner city life.'
Not only is your brush stroke too wide, your logic is also atrophied. And not only that, but you make it seem as if the 'white boys' are joining the military for patriotic reasons, while the 'black kids' are hiking a ride. I wonder how many of your 'white boys' joined the armed services due to college money, and how many 'inner city utes' joined the military due to it being the only option available.
I also wonder if you would be able to differentiate, were you to look at the spilt blood from brave soldiers downed in Iraq, which was from a 'white boy' (patriotic and all), and which was from a 'black kid' (escaping from the ghetto). After all you must have some methodology of differentiating between patriot's blood and ghetto-escapee blood, huh?
IMHO, the only real issue here, is the Times scents what it percieves as a potential Red State wedge it's trying to develop for Ms. Hillarhea.......
What bubble is that? Nothing that you have stated contradicts anything in my post. Did you read the article? It specifically states, "A look at the demographics of soldiers killed reveals that Iraq is not the war of any one race or region.".
Do you doubt for a moment that if the data showed poor black soldiers dying at a disproportionate rate the NY Times would not have run with that as the focal point of the article?
Urban does not necessarily mean for Kerry and rural doesn't necessarily mean for Bush.
George Bush carried Harris County, TX.
George Bush lost Jim Hogg County, TX.
Someone enlighten me, which county is rural and which is urban
George Bush also carried Duval County, FL. Anyone familiar with that area knows that Duval County is coextensive with the City of Jacksonville.
I would also be willing to bet that Bush carried Miami proper.
Now, as for the idea that the Dakotas and Wyoming can be compared to Alabama.
The most populous county in Alabama has 660,000 residents.
The most populous county in South Dakota has 150,000 residents.
The most populous county in Wyoming has 84,000 residents.
Alabama has 3 metropolitan areas with more than 500,000 residents, and one of those has a population of over 1,000,000.
Neither Wyoming or South Dakota have a metro area approaching 500,000 much less 1,000,000.
Let me explain something to you.
The story says that rural soldiers are dying at a disproportionate rate. Rural is not a category defined by race. Let me explain something to you, if a soldier from rural Macon County is killed, there is a 8 in 10 chance that the soldier will be black.
The bottom line is that minorities TEND to gravitate toward support MOS's. They don't do as much of the dying.
Kids raised up in rural America are more likely to be inculcated with a love of God, family and country and the knowledge that some things, and some people, are worth dying to protect.
A lot of great American Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines have come from town, but as a percentage of the overall population, it's the rural kids who answer their contry's call.
You talked about the bottom line ....well, the bottom line is that anybody who joins the armed services ....be they inner city Whites or rural Blacks (believe it or not both exist), or whether they did so because they always wanted to be a soldier, or it was for scholarship money, or because their uncle as a marine, or even because of something they watched on 9/11 that got them on their feet .....all of those people are serving their nation. And I doubt any of them need someone saying all urban recruits are black kids trying to escape ghetto life.
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