Mentorship Course of Action Increasing African American Interest in the Maneuver Branches

The maneuver branches have been accessing a relatively low percentage of African American Second Lieutenants in comparison to other branches of the Army. This trend is significant because in the current Army system, a lack of proportional African American participation in the two largest maneuver branches, Infantry and Armor, means that there will likely be a dearth of African Americans holding senior Army leadership positions in the future. This study proposes that the maneuver branches implement a formal mentoring program at the pre-commission sources to address African American bias against serving in Armor and Infantry. This bias is caused by a negative perception of the utility of serving in the branches in seeking to gain skills for a civilian career. The study develops a mentorship program model, and then analyzes it using Army course of action evaluation criteria suitability, acceptability and feasibility. The study finds that the course of action is suitable to the problem, and acceptable, but implementation infeasible due to current operations and moreover maneuver culture.