Asian American Army Recruitment Up 80% in LA County
According to the L.A. Times, L.A. County has seen an overall increase in Asian Americans enlisting for the U.S. Army:
Overall, the Los Angeles Recruiting Battalion signed up 2,300 new recruits, a 34% increase over last fiscal year.
[Enlistees] helped drive the biggest Army recruitment boon for Los Angeles in two decades — led by an 80% increase in Asian enlistments in the last year. Asians have traditionally joined the military at the lowest rate among all races.
But lured by job security, enhanced tuition aid and, for some immigrants, the chance for U.S. citizenship, Asians this year made up 22% of all active-duty recruits, nearly twice their proportion in the Los Angeles County population.
Latino enlistments increased by 37%, while African Americans rose by about 14% and whites, 15%.
I can’t help but feel that these kids are being lured by the American Dream of getting a fully paid college education or US citizenship, rather than the American Dream of fighting for your country. Are they being tricked? Or is this simply a business deal… True, a lot of these folks will not see the battlefield and will probably be behind a computer monitor working on our “defenses”. But some of these kids WILL be in our wars, and blown to pieces in Afghanistan, all because s/he wanted to take engineering classes at UC Irvine and couldn’t afford it with the ridiculous UC fee hikes this year.
Thanks CB
