I remember whilst serving in the British Army, doing a joint exercise with some American infantry.

At the end of the exercise there was a parade, where they handed out some awards, but before it started and as it ended they had prayers. There were about 30 of us Brits and we all stood with our heads up straight laughing our arses off.

It may have just been this regiment, but when we socialised with them, they seemed to be poorly educated and predominately from the Southern States.

Johnny O, yep same for me here, my time spent in the US Army most of the fairly devout religious types tended to be from what we call the "bible belt". A good portion are fairly uneducated usually just a HS education if that, maybe a GED. To make matters worse, the Army promotes at least back when I was in, by not having to know your particular job, mainly just supervisor skills etc.. so you get these backwoods types as your supervisors. Man that really sucked.

The military in some cases is all that these guys have for the most part as a stable career. They dont have any other job skills/ education or training that could help them outside in the real world from where they are from,, the stories I heard was " It was either jail or the military, or being homeless or the army, or being able to get 3 meals a day/ shelter or starve"... its kinda sad actually.