ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the demographic and sociological characteristics of the Militia subjects and focuses on the reasons for joining, the methods of selection, and the promotion of officers and regimental sergeant majors (RSMs). It provides a mass of information from the author's informal conversations with Militia members of all ranks, male and female, in the armories and out on exercises in the field. Interviews were taped with the senior officers at the head quarters (HQs) and with a number of others less formally, but the data on them are less detailed than for the officers and RSMs in the twenty-nine units targeted for the major visits. Only forty-four of the officers could be placed with confidence in the top categories according to their occupations or to the author's subjective impressions from their reputations in the community. Militia regiments reflected the social composition of their communities.
