re: #214 wrenchwench

So is the Marine, but that discussion (Hispanics can be of any race) will explode more heads.

Interestingly, according to this article from last year by Business Insider, white Americans are underrepresented WRT active duty personnel, but not when it comes to officers. The data is based on a 2012 DoD report on military demographics, however there’s a more recent report for 2014 here (PDF). As far as I can tell, the lopsidedness hasn’t changed much (though the percentage of white active duty members has decreased by just under 1%). I don’t see hispanic listed, so I’m gonna guess they’re counted as white? Ah, here we go (emphasis mine):

Race/Ethnicity. Less than one-third (31.2%) or 412,070 of Active Duty members identify themselves as a minority (i.e., Black or African American, Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, Multi-racial, or Other/Unknown). The percentage of Active Duty members who identify themselves as a minority is greater in 2014 than it was in 1995 (from 28.2% of enlisted members and 10.5% of officers in 1995, to 32.9% of enlisted members and 22.5% of officers in 2014). The overall ratio of minority enlisted personnel (359,056) to minority officers (53,014) is 6.8 minority enlisted personnel for every one minority officer. To conform to the latest Office of Management and Budget (OMB) directives, Hispanic is not considered a minority race designation and is analyzed separately as an ethnicity. Overall, 12.0 percent of the DoD Active Duty force is of Hispanic ethnicity. [pp. iii-iv of the 2014 report]

Also:

2.22 Number and Percentage of Active Duty Members by Ethnicity and Race

This table presents the number and percentage of Active Duty members by ethnicity and race. The Other/Unknown race category has the greatest percentage of members indicating Hispanic ethnicity (57.3%), while Asian members have the smallest percentage indicating Hispanic ethnicity (2.8%). Overall, 12.0 percent of Active Duty members are of Hispanic ethnicity. [p. 25 of the 2014 report]