USA Today reporters Tom Squitieri and Dave Moniz wrote today that front line troops in the military are disproportionately white, not black , according to military statistics.

The American troops likeliest to fight and die in a war against Iraq are disproportionately white, not black, military statistics show -- contradicting a belief widely held since the early days of the Vietnam War.

''If anybody should be complaining about battlefield deaths, it is poor, rural whites,'' says Charles Moskos, a military sociologist at Northwestern University in Illinois.

In a little-publicized trend, black recruits have gravitated toward non-combat jobs that provide marketable skills for post-military careers, while white soldiers are over-represented in front-line combat forces.

Blacks make up 12 percent of the population, and 20% of the military. But they make up less than 5% of the high-risk postions, such as army commandos and navy and air force fighter pilots.

Among the possible reasons given for the disparate numbers are "lingering racism in some quarters of the military and a tendency among black recruits to choose jobs that help them find work in the civilian sector."