Of the 41 most senior commanders in the military — those with four-star rank in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard — only two are black: Gen. Michael X. Garrett, who leads the Army’s Forces Command, and Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr, the commander of Pacific Air Forces.

The elite service academies that feed the officer class — the United States Military Academy at West Point, the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs — have increased their enrollment of minority recruits in recent years but remain largely white.

Interviews with more than three dozen white, black and Hispanic service members and officers depict an entrenched and clubby system with near cement ceilings for minority groups.

To nearly a one, the African-American service members interviewed for this article said they paused when they walked by the painting of Gen. Colin L. Powell, the first and only black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The top Army officers — Gen. James C. McConville, the Army chief of staff; Gen. John M. Murray, the head of the Army’s Futures Command; and Gen. Paul E. Funk II, the head of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command — are all white and were all mentored by the same man, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, a former Army vice chief of staff.

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