In this file photo from 2010, an Army captain with 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, carries battalion colors with gratification in the Bataan Death March done in Kuwait.

The U.S. Army launched a new recruiting video at the All-American Bowl — its largest recruiting event — aimed at piquing the interests of minority recruits into joining the Army's officer corps, the San Antonio Express-News reported.

The Army is pushing to have better demographic reflected at its higher echelons of not just the country, but of the service itself, the paper reports.

In all, there are 53 minority generals among the 391 top leaders in the Army, or 14 percent. The 2010 Census found 16.3 percent of all Americans are Hispanic and 12.3 percent are African American, according to the Express-News, which added "more than 80 percent of soldiers are male, and 61.4 percent are Anglo. An additional 20 percent are black, with 11.7 percent Hispanic."

The new video features Maj. Myles Caggins III, an African American, portrayed as not just an Army officer, but as a scholar, a mentor, and a leader. “I was one of those guys who didn't think the Army had anything for me. And then I found out that less than one-tenth of 1 percent of all Americans wear the uniform of an Army officer,” Caggins says at the opening of the video.

Additionally, a Pentagon plan for 2012 to 2017, calls diversity “a strategic imperative, critical to mission readiness and accomplishment, and a leadership requirement,” the Express-News reported on the Army's minority recruting tool.

Source: San Antonio Express-News

