Highlight the seemingly negative news, bury the positive.

The percentage of recruits requiring a waiver to join the Army because of a criminal record or other past misconduct has more than doubled since 2004 to one for every eight new soldiers.

The increase reflects the difficulties the Army faces in attracting young men and women into the military at a time of war. "Each month is a struggle, for the Army in particular," said Bill Carr, a top military personnel official.

The percentage of active and Reserve Army recruits granted "conduct" waivers for misdemeanor or felony charges increased to 11% last fiscal year from 4.6% in fiscal 2004, according to Army Recruiting Command statistics. So far this fiscal year, which began last October, 13% of recruits have entered the Army with conduct waivers.

Most waivers involve misdemeanors. The Army has granted 4,676 conduct waivers among the 36,047 recruited from October through late February. The waivers have helped the Army meet its active and Reserve recruitment goals of about 100,000 people a year for the past several years.

Obviously this constitutes a degradation of our military, right.

Well, maybe not.

Indeed, certainly not.

Recruits who have come in with waivers generally perform better than peers who haven't needed special permission to join the Army, Carr said.
"When you have people volunteering that have made some mistakes in their life, you give them fair consideration," said Frank Shaffery, deputy director of the Army's Recruiting Command.

Interesting how the fact that these soldiers out-perform their peers gets buried at the very end of the story. You donÂ’t suppose it could be based upon a subconscious desire to bad talk the troops, do you?

Posted by: Greg at 12:02 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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