John J. Miller was exactly right about this article on recruiting in today’s New York Times. I’ve followed up on his post with this e-mail to two NYT editors:

In the article, “Army Effort to Enlist Hispanics Draws Recruits and Criticism” (Feb. 9), Lizette Alvarez writes “Critics also say that Latinos often wind up as cannon fodder on the casualty-prone front lines. African-Americans saw the same thing happen during the 1970’s and 1980’s, an accusation that still reverberates. Hispanics make up only 4.7 percent of the military’s officer corps.” This clever bit of wording is misleading — it leaves the impression that Latinos are getting hurt and killed in Iraq in higher numbers than other ethnic groups. Government reports, such as this one from CRS, indicate that Latino casualty rates are about 10 percent — equal to their representation in the Army and below their representation in the U.S. population. If these “critics” were right about Latinos winding up as “cannon fodder on the casualty-prone front lines,” wouldn’t the actual casualty figures clarify as effectively as the officer-corps statistic misleads?
Do you think this warrants a clarification on the newspaper’s corrections page? What duty do reporters have to verify the claims of the critics they quote?

I’ll let you know if I hear anything.

UPDATE (02/10 10:10 AM): Nothing so far.