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“The Army has loosened its standards to enlist a record number of new recruits with criminal histories as the service struggles to meet its growing manpower goals.” According to the Baltimore Sun. A sentiment that is echoed by a report in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
In the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 18 percent of recruits needed waivers for problems with the law — up from 15 percent the previous year, Maj. Gen. Thomas Bostick, commander of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, told a Pentagon news conference. He said 87 percent of those were for misdemeanors such as joy riding or violating curfew.
12,057 wavers have been issued in 2007, the highest of the past 5 years.
The unpopular war in Iraq and President Bush’s goal of expanding the active-duty Army by 65,000 troops by 2010 have put enlistment goals under intense pressure and have also led the service to loosen other recruiting policies.
For 2007, waivers for misdemeanors made up the overwhelming majority of moral character waivers - 9,935 of the 12,057 total, with 2,122 waivers issued for serious offenses.
Of course- the best spin on the whole thing was issued by Defense Personnel Head David S.C. Chu, when he said “Not to be cheeky about this, but (if) we apply that standard to our legislative overseers, a significant fraction would need waivers to join the United States military.”
Well, I guess if we can’t expect our leaders to be righteous upstanding individuals, why should our armed forces be any better.
Honestly though- everyone deserves a second chance- but you have to think that, given the steadily increasing numbers, maybe some people who should be getting turned away at this point- aren’t.
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