Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said that military recruits came increasingly from the South, the mountain West and small towns, and less often from the Northeast, West Coast and big cities. The military’s own basing decisions have reinforced the trend, he said, with a significant percentage of Army posts moved in recent years to just five states: Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Texas and Washington. A military of 2.4 million of active and reserve members is less than 1 percent — the smallest proportion ever — of the population it serves. here