U.S. Army lowers its recruiting standards

[unhappycamper]

U.S. Army lowers its recruiting standards
By Aamer Madhani | Washington Bureau
3:24 PM CDT, October 11, 2007


WASHINGTON - The U.S. Army met its recruiting goals for the last year but enlisted thousands of new soldiers with criminal records and fewer who have earned high school diplomas, according to figures released Wednesday.

The spike of new enlistees given "character" waivers for fiscal 2007 continues a steady upward trend in the number of recruits with past arrests and convictions allowed into the Army since the start of the war in Iraq.

More than 11 percent of the Army recruits needed waivers for problems with the law -- up from 7.9 percent the previous year and more than double the percentage in 2003, the year the U.S. invaded Iraq. Maj. Gen. Thomas Bostick, commander of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, stressed that a vast majority, about 87 percent, of those allowed in with waivers had misdemeanors for such offenses as joy riding or violating curfew. Most faced little punishment beyond community service for their actions, Bostick said.

But at the same time, the number of enlistees with felony convictions and arrests in their pasts has increased. In 2003, the Army allowed 459 enlistees with felony arrests and convictions into the service compared to 1,620 this past year. The startling figures come at a time when the Army is trying to grow amid persistent questions about how the armed forces can increase force size during a time of war without significantly lowering the quality of recruits.

Overall, the Army surpassed by 407 its goal of enlisting 80,000 recruits for the year, and three other branches of the military met or surpassed their recruiting goals for their active-duty components. Four of the six reserve components met their recruiting goals, with the Army National Guard and Air Force National Guard falling just short.

The Army met the annual recruiting goal after missing its May and June targets. Before May, the Army had hit its goal every month since June 2005. About 18.5 percent of the recruits needed some kind of waiver, including those for medical problems and drug and alcohol issues. More than 54 percent of those who received waivers, however, were enlistees with criminal backgrounds.


Rest of article at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-recruit11oct11,1,6617133.story?track=rss&ctrack=1&cset=true



uhc comment: I saw something on Link TV (or M$NBC) recently about recruiters trolling prison/jail job fairs for fodder.

[T Wolf]

1. Maybe they will lower them enough to allow repukes to join up. nt

[unhappycamper]

4. There's plenty of repukes already in.

They're fairly easy to spot --> http://www.militarytimes.com/forum/index.php?s=5de8dad6b79ffae85f987f0281da2fe9

[Captain Hilts]

2. They've been granting waivers for lack of HS degree, felonies, etc. If you're...

someone who's been in the army for, say 4 years already, and you see this riff raff getting in with huge signing bonuses, what does that do for morale?

[Sanity Claws]

3. Felonies!!

I didn't realize that they were recruiting convicted felons. OM Goodness. Do they realize that they just attached a fuse to a time bomb?

[Turbineguy]

5. But there is a good side to this

for many individuals it will be a chance for redemption and a chance to rejoin society instead of being marginalized permanently.

[rakeeb]

6. UNC, you were in the old Army,

you must remember how much lower the enlistment standards were back when the Army was more than twice the size it is now?
No dig on you personally, but a high school diploma and clean criminal records didn't become the unwaiverable standards until the largest drawdown in 1992-93, when they were shaving the numbers down to 429,000 from a high of almost a million when you were in.