More Latinas are Enlisting in the Military than Latinos

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The number of Latina women enlisting in the military has gone up, making up one out of five new enlistees, more than Hispanic men. 

Latinas went from 11.5 percent of the new enlistees in 2003 to almost 17 percent in 2010, according to a Pew poll on women in the military released today.  In fact, in 2010 Latinas made up 19 percent of new enlistees.. This was a higher percentage than Hispanic men, who were a bit over 16 percent of last year’s new enlistees.        

The new report found four out of ten women in the military said they joined for employment reasons, compared to a quarter of the men.  And more than eight in ten women veterans said they joined the military after 9/11 to serve their country and/or receive education benefits.  Since the early 1970s, women in the military have increased almost fourfold.  

An interesting finding was that almost half of married military women ended up marrying a fellow service member, compared to only 7 percent of men who married a military wife.  But less than half of active-duty military women are married, and slightly more than one in ten are single moms.    

The poll found there are slightly more women commissioned officers than men - seventeen to fifteen percent.  In the Army, 18 percent of the commissioned officers are women and 13 percent are men.   

Women, however, do not serve in the same way as men. Only about 3 out of 10 female veterans served in combat, were deployed away from their permanent duty station or served with someone who was killed in the military.  Yet almost half the women said they had trauma or distress while serving.  Half of women veterans had experienced strain in their family relationships when they finished their time in the service.  

Joining the military life has paid off for most women, though - three-quarters of female vets said their military experience helped them prepare for a job or a career and 78 percent would advise a young person close to them to join the military.  

Women were more critical, however, of the recent wars - 63 percent said the war in Iraq was not worth fighting and more than half said the same about Afghanistan.

BY SANDRA LILLEY, NBC LATINO STAFF

Follow Sandra on Twitter at sandralilley.