| The U.S. Army might have met its recruiting goals for last year, but it only managed to do so by enlisting more people with previous criminal records.
Over 11% of new enlistees needed a "character waiver" in fiscal 2007, up from 7.9% the previous year and more than double the percentage in 2003, the year Bush and his Neocon cohorts took us into this godforsaken war.
While the head of Army recruitment states that 87% of those waivers are for "youthful indiscretion" offenses like joy riding, the number of recruits with felony arrests and convictions has almost tripled, from 459 in 2003 to 1620 in fiscal 2007.
Perhaps almost as worrying, given the technological requirements of the modern armed forces, is that the number of recruits without a high school diploma has also risen dramatically. Fewer than 80% of new recruits in fiscal 2007 had a high school diploma - this is the fourth straight year that the number has been below 80%.
The Department of Defense goal is for 90% of recruits to have achieved a high school diploma. Guess that ain't happening any time soon, especially since the DOD plans to increase the size of the standing Army from 512,000 to 547,000 by 2010.
With the Army stretched to the breaking point by extended deployments, is it any wonder that they're having to lower the standards in order to keep the numbers up? |
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