The report I linked to said that for the age group, Hispanics made up 13% of recruits out of a civilian population of 18%. With retention, Hispanics fall to 10% out of a civilian population of 16%.

So it is only Blacks who are over represented minorities, not Blacks and Hispanics. And the over representation of Blacks is in line with their over representation in federal employment. So to say that a volunteer army is somehow unfair to blacks because they are over represented is also to say that the federal government is unfair to blacks because they are over represented in employment there.

Since the recruitment numbers are in line (15% recruits being black out of 14% population), the higher representation in the military is due to their retention. They get in, they like it and want to make a career out of it. This is bad how?

A group of Minnesota National Guard soldiers in Iraq has made a comically misspelled sign mocking Se...

I would question your comment on "minorities over represented in enlisted ranks". African Americans are 'over represented' by 1% on recruits. Their retention rate is higher, so the African American enlisted man ratio is 'over represented by 8%. All other minorities are under represented. So your statement could be much clearer by specifying African American as opposed to all minorities.

But to really put this in perspective, look at the larger government minority rates. If you look at federal jobs overall, you see the 8% overall higher African American enlisted is close to the 7.3% "over representation" of blacks in the federal workforce.

Race/Ethnicity. In FY 2004, African Americans were equitably represented in the military overall. In the enlisted force, African Americans were slightly overrepresented among NPS active duty accessions (15 percent) relative to the 18-24 year-old civilian population (14 percent). FY 2004 representation of "Other" minority enlisted accessions (American Indians and Alaskan Natives, Asians, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, and those of two or more races) stood at approximately 7 percent, equal to the civilian population (7 percent). Hispanics, on the other hand, continued to be underrepresented, with 13 percent among NPS accessions compared with nearly 18 percent for comparable civilians. African Americans are overrepresented in the enlisted ranks when compared to their civilian cohorts. Higher retention rates among African Americans continue to boost their representation among Active Components enlisted members – 21 percent in contrast to the 13 percent of African Americans among 18-44 year-old civilians in the workforce. With nearly 10 percent of active duty enlisted members counted as Hispanic, this ethnic minority remained underrepresented relative to the growing comparable civilian population (16 percent