Blacks in U.S. Armed Forces

I take issue with the comments of Mark Ridley-Thomas concerning African-Americans in the armed forces (“A Day of Sober Stock-Taking, as Real Battles Are Ignored,” Commentary, Jan. 21). His comment about “the armed forces being the employer of last resort” is not only wrong but inciteful. The military has standards, and believe me, not everyone who applies for entry into the military is accepted. Aptitude, measured by each applicant’s ability to pass a series of written tests, goes far in determining who gets in. Most of the men who are in our military now are, on average, more intelligent than people who’ve previously served in the military.

Ridley-Thomas feels that African-Americans are overrepresented in the military. He’s wrong. If he feels that African-Americans are in the jobs that are most life-threatening, why are the white college-graduate pilots doing the fighting and dying now?

TED SHAW

Long Beach