Who Defends America?: Race, Sex, and Class in the Armed Forces

This book explores the increasingly significant role of blacks in the nation’s armed services. Blacks represent only 12 percent of the U.S. population but comprise 20 percent of all active duty military personnel and about 30 percent of the army’s soldiers. Should these statistics bother us? To answer this and related questions, Who Defends America? includes the views of leading experts from government and academia. Contributions include: Introduction by Edwin Dorn; The National Security Context by McGeorge Bundy; The Pentagon’s Perspective by Lawrence J. Korb; A View from Capitol Hill by Les Aspin; Statistical Trends by Alvin J. Schexnider and Edwin Dorn; Standardized Tests and Black Youths by Elsie Moore; The Influence of the Marketplace on the AVF by Charles C. Moskos; Choice, Justice, and Representation by Robert K. Fullinwider; Public Attitudes by A. Wade Smith; Lessons from Other Times, Other Places by Cynthia H. Enloe; and Right Issues, Wrong Questions by Roger Wilkins.