"Ethnic composition of modern U.S. small units" Topic

I know this may open a can of worms; if so, I apologize in advance.
I'm working on 28mm figs for skirmishes in Afghanistan, and I was wondering what the ethnic composition of your typical small unit would be.
Thanks in advance,
Hoser

Honest question, never understood why ppl get upset by someone asking a factual question.

I did some googling and found the link below:

link

Blacks:
According the link above, ~ 10% of the Marines and <20% of the Army. About 9% of the deaths in Afghanistan were Blacks and they make up ~17% of the active US forces world-wide.

The link below had general statistics that may help:

link

"Whites make up 75.6% of the U.S. population (ages 18-44), and 67% of the total DOD force, but experienced 75.2% (3,525) of the combat casualties. Among the 18-44 age-group, Blacks make up 12.2% of the U.S. population, 17% of the total DOD force, and experienced 9.3% (437) of the total casualties. Hispanics comprise 14.2% of the population, 9% of the total DOD force and had 10.4% (489) of the casualties."

~7% Other if I did the maths correct.

Not sure of the break down for specific forces (ex: Rangers vs Marines).

PDF link

A legitimate question for anyone with an interest in the US military. I'd like to see similar data for the economic demographics.

I think this is a reasonable question. Sociologically and interpersonally, it is more relevant to get the people right than specifically the uniforms they are wearing--which is something many people obsess over when any study of combat should be more focused on the people fighting than even the gear they are using.

Anecdotally (and I feel I should stress that), my experience in three US Army infantry outfits (the Infantry Training Brigade, 11th ACR, and 10th Mountain Division) during the late 90s to early 2000s showed me that Caucasians formed an overwhelming majority of the units I was a part of with Hispanics and noticeable but distant second.

To put that in more perspective: In my one-plus year with the ITB at Ft. Benning (first as recruit then as an adjunct company training 'NCO') there were well under a dozen black recruits and only three black drill sergeants (one of which was a Reservist), all in a year's worth of training cycles. As the studies linked to above have shown, Asians were even less well-represented, and Hispanics more-so. In two years at NTC in a squadron operations shop, there was only one black trooper (in the S2 section) and one or two NCOs (and one officer I can remember; a troop commander); here there were many more Hispanics. Three years with the 10th Mountain yielded only three black infantrymen in my platoon and two NCOs; the other platoons in the company had even less than that. Again, Asians had a similar or lesser showing by numbers and Hispanics considerably more.

Now, that data is only anecdotal of one individual during one six-plus year timeframe but it does, I feel, mesh closely with the data presented previously. It might be worth trying to find out how the different ethnic categories are broken down by MOS and even unit. I got the impression that there were more blacks, for instance, in the 3rd ID and the 24th Mech than my memory of the units I served in, and in the service support echelons of the units I was a part of. Please note that the last part is only a nebulous remembrance; I very rarely got to know any of the people in the [service] supporting arms by name so I couldn't tell you explicitly.

Either way, it is admirable to try to portray the troopers on the front lines with a nod towards realism. No matter the color of their skin, they are all comrades in arms and could be counted on when the chips were down and things got real. But they are individuals, too, and should be represented that way.

My old unit was overwhelmingly white, like 80%, but that was in 1991. All of our officers were white as were half of our NCOs. EMs were 60-70 white with the balance being mostly Hispanic. We had two Asians (Vietnamese and Laotian) and two Blacks. The non-white NCOs were mostly Black as was our battalion sergeant major. Blacks tended to be E5 plus and they were pretty high-speed. Lifers all. Most us white kids were middle and lower middle thrill junkies looking to play soldier. Our NCOs were the real deal and taught us everything we knew. If anything beat Saddam it was the steady leadership and solid training that our NCOs gave us.

It's a great question, and one I would have been asking myself in a short bit, seeing as I have a platoon of Elheim Marines on my table right now. 8)=

Thanks for the excellent info!

I have observed in the past ten years that US Army combat units are overwhelmingly white/caucasian (can't really judge as far as Hispanic). African-Americans tend to concentrate in combat support and service support units.

I speculate that a reason for this is that soldiers in the combat arms units are more likely to be there for the good specialty bonuses, intend to do only one or two tours and then get out to study or work, while African-Americans are more interested in career opportunities in the military, to learn a skill that's useful long-term. Just my speculation though.

During my time in the U.S. Army (1980-200) in Scout Plt's the break down averaged as fallows.

60% White
5% Hispanic (3% Puerto Rican, 2% Mexican American)
20% Black
5% Native American
5% Asian

This is just an average in the amount in a 30 man Plt.

As this is an old post, PM me and I will tell you the real deal if you REALLY want to know. I retired with 28 years of AFS with the pay grade of E-8.
I spent time as an MP, Recovery Specialists (in an Armored DIV), a Recruiter (6 years) and Career counselor.
I have been in a fair mixture of units and places and have got to know a lot about the different races of people and how they end up in MOSs and certain types of units.
Be warned1: I'm not politically correct. Nor am I hating on anybody. I met lots of great people serving our great nation and always treated everyone like they were my brother or sister.

WALLY