The Southern Military Tradition

• Date: 01 April 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17700851
• Published date: 01 April 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

The Southern

Military Tradition:

Sociodemographic

Factors, Cultural Legacy,

and U.S. Army Enlistments

Adam J. Maley

1

and Daniel N. Hawkins

1

Abstract

Throughoutthe history of the United States,the South has had higher levelsof military

service thanother regions of the country.Scholars regularly refer tothis phenomenon

as a “Southern militarytradition.” The reasons behind thisoverrepresentation are not

completely understood. Do Southern sociodemographic characteristics make it a

preferred recruiting area or is theresomething distinctive about thecultural legacy of

Southern history that encourages and supports military service? Using a unique data

set that includes county-level active duty army enlistments and sociodemographic

information,we show that Southern counties have significantly higher enlistment rates

than counties in the Northeast and Midwest. These differences disappear when

sociodemographic factors, such as fewer college graduates and a prominent presence

of Evangelical Christians, are taken into account. These findings suggest that popula-

tion characteristics may be a stronger driver of current regional disparities in military

service than an inherited Southern military tradition.

Keywords

military culture, North America, recruitment/retention, sociology, veterans,

methodology

1

University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE, USA

Corresponding Author:

Adam J. Maley, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 6001

Dodge Street, Arts and Sciences Hall, Omaha, NE 68182, USA.

Email: amaley@unomaha.edu

Armed Forces & Society

2018, Vol. 44(2) 195-218

ªThe Author(s) 2017

Reprints and permission:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17700851

journals.sagepub.com/home/afs

A particularly noticeable feature stands out to those who come in contact with U.S.

military members: They tend to speak with a Southern accent (Marsman, 2009), a

recruiting phenomenon referred to as the “Southern military tradition” (Kane, 2005;

Quill, 1977; Segal & Segal, 2004; Watkins & Sherk, 2008). In fact, the overrepre-

sentation of Southerners in the military has been steadily increasing in recent

decades (see Figure 1). What is it about the South that compels so many of its youth

toward military service?

There are two major potential explanations for the Southern military tradi-

tion. The first is that sociodemographic factors drive the phenomenon; the

South presently has population and cultural characteristics that are associated

with a higher propensity to enlist in the military, such as a greater proportion

of youth and minorities, lower levels of college-educated citizens, a fervent

religious base, and a robust military presence. The other explanation is histor-

ical, rooted in a cultural military tradition in the South that stretches back

before the Civil War, but that may continue into the present. To examine these

possibilities, we created a unique county-level data set that combines U.S.

Census data with information on religious congregations, military veteran

residence, and active duty army enlistments. This data set allows us to address

whether, after accounting for current sociodemographic factors, the South still

has higher levels of enlistment than other regions of the country. If there is

regional variance left unexplained by the sociodemographic predictors, this

“residual model” points to the likelihood that a unique Southern cultural

legacy may play a role in encouraging military enlistment. To our knowledge,

no study has directly investigated explanations for the Southern military tra-

dition using quantitative data.

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

Northeast Midwest West South

Figure 1. Percentage of all volunteer force enlistments, nonprior service active component

accessions by region, fiscal years 1973–2015 (Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, 2016,

p. 14).

196 Armed Forces & Society 44(2)