HispanicBusiness

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - When Rudy Gomez returned to his parent's modest Sunrise, Fla., home, he received a hero's welcome. There were flowers, phone calls and news cameras chronicling the 25-year-old soldiers homecoming as the first Latino to return to South Florida.

A few days later, Marine Cpl. Armando Gonzalez also came home. But this time the cameras and family came out to Hialeah, Fla., to honor the area's first casualty of the Iraq war.

The two men are part of a new generation of Hispanic and black soldiers whose high visibility on the Iraqi war's front lines have reawakened an old debate over the role of minorities in the military.

"There is an impression out there that Latinos are over-represented in the military," says Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington-based group that recently conducted a study looking at how Latinos have fared in the military.

The study found that Latinos were underrepresented in the armed forces as of September 2001. There were nearly 110,000 Hispanics, comprising less than 9.5 percent of the armed forces' 1.15 million personnel, according to the study. Latinos make up nearly 13 percent of the population, according to the latest U.S. Census figures.

While Latinos were underrepresented in the Army, Navy and Air Force they were slightly over-represented in the Marine Corps enlisted ranks, the study concluded. The Pew study relied on 2001 figures from the Department of Defense. Those numbers are still not public but a 2000 DOD report show similar findings.

The study found Latinos were more likely to be on the front lines and therefore suffer injuries. Hispanics made up 17.4 percent of the enlisted personnel who directly handle weapons known as "infantry, gun crews and seamanship," the report concluded.

The numbers are higher for blacks, who make up less than 13 percent of the population but comprised more than 22 percent of the armed forces, according to the same report. There were just under 259,000 blacks in the military, according to the study.

Blacks were over-represented in every branch of the armed forces. However, they made up only 12 percent of those enlisted personnel who most directly handle weapons.

The figures spurred black and Latino groups to come out against the war.

Early this year, the NAACP's board passed a resolution opposing the war saying it "underscores that African American and other minority youth and young adults are enrolled into service at disproportionate rates to defend this nation and her honor."

Latino lawmakers have also expressed their concern over the enlisted ranks and the cost of the war.

Moreover, the latest figures and the rising casualty list that now includes immigrant soldiers have many in these communities asking who really fights America's wars.

"It seems to be that minorities are the one serving," says Eric Carbonell, a 26-year-old of Cuban descent who lives in Fort Lauderdale. "I think it's because the minorities need to join for financial reason, because they see it as a way out of their situation or a way to get a better life and get some money for college."

Two of Carbonell's friends are currently in the military, including Rudy Gomez, the Sunrise soldier whose hand was crushed in an accident as his platoon took enemy fire less than 100 miles from Baghdad.

Gomez, like many in the military, say college money, along with their desire to serve their country, drew them to serve Uncle Sam.