If the strain of two wars wasn’t enough, U.S. soldiers also face the unfair burdens of stereotyping: They’re dumb; they’re brutes; they’re broke; they’re joining up because they have no other career options. But a new demographic study of who’s joining the Army demonstrates that the reality is entirely the opposite.

The National Priorities Project, a lefty research organization in Massachusetts, crunched the numbers for enlistment in fiscal 2009. Its findings show an Army that’s smarter and more upwardly mobile than it often gets credit for being. Yes, in order to meet the strain of recruiting during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the military as a whole lowered standards in the mid-2000s. But the National Priorities Project indicates that the Army, at least, may have turned a corner — and this is a group of people that knows it’s going to war.