As some of you may know, I am in training to be a recruiter for the US Army. We have spent the last few days talking about who can enlist and what can keep people out of the Army without a waiver. I have learned and was surprised to learn that the Army will not take anyone who exchanged a civil conviction for agreeing to enlist in the military service. That takes a lot of the stories I have seen in the movies and on TV and throws them out the window.
Should the Army do this, regardless of the charge? Did you know this was a regulation for enlistment?
I remember hearing it back in high school, '88 ish. Don’t remember where though, but IIRC it was from a teacher or a military recruiter who was addressing a class or something like that.
Well, there would be some obvious problems with it. One is that a person could be killed or disfigured when they did a crime that wouldn’t merit the death penalty. If you’re talking about putting people in combat jobs without their choice, you could argue that anyone whose crime was bad enough to warrant that, would be someone the Army wouldn’t want.
Another is that it would make an incentive for the government to convict more people. Of course, a similar argument can exist when prisoners are used for labor or the prisons are run by for-profit entities.
I’m not talking about felonies, but the young people who are facing shoplifting charges or something similar and tell the judge they will enlist if they can get the charges dismissed. Yeah, I don’t want death row convicts in the Army ranks.
I think that this used to happen decades ago but not for a while. This did happen to my friend’s father in the 1950’s (or so she said.) He was convicted of a second offense of burglary and was facing jail time. The judge gave him the option of joining the Army instead of going to jail. He took it, fought in Korea, and stayed in for over twenty years. He claimed that it saved his life.
Well, heck, the Army is actually recruiting in some jails – I saw a report on the DC news last week about how the military was invited to and participated in a job fair at the Alexandria, VA city jail last month – and will take people with some felonies. Enlisting in lieu of a conviction for a minor crime seems pretty puny by comparison.
Back in the fifties I had a period of teenage rebellion. I was 14-16 at the time. Several felonies, B&E, GTA, vandalism. I don’t ever recall going in front of a judge, but I was put on probation somehow. I managed to join the Navy Reserve when I was 17 and a few months later I applied for active duty. When my PO found out he said I couldn’t do that w/o his permission and I sweated for a few weeks figuring he’d stop it. He didn’t and I went on to make a career of it. I’m guessing he and my dad had a talk, anyway it all came out good in the end. Things were a lot different back then, I doubt I’d have made it today, not sure if it better or not.
I’m not sure how long the military has had the policy of not allowing a enlistment in exchange for a conviction, but there may have been a way around it. If the person in trouble enlists, charges are dropped. Bingo! No conviction.
I know my uncles, who are in their 70’s now, used to talk about kids they grew up with who had the choice of the military or doing time. In most cases it turned out for the best.
I don’t think there is the slightest thing wrong with it. The choice is entirely up to the miscreant. Besides, a stint in the military and a little discipline would probably do most of the punks involved a world of good.
I don’t agree with it. I had a friend who a constant fuckup and joining the army was the only thing that straighten him out. He was in and out of trouble for fighting and stealing. After he got back from AIT, he was a different man. Focused, mature, and although obnoxiously over confidant, much better than when he went in.
As long as its a peace time practice there should be no real problem, I would think it would bother me if it was done actively during military operations in a theatre.
While the miscreant does face a possible future where you might go to war , if done during peace time , anyone who gets army/marine option over jail is most certainly going to end up doing a tour of duty in Iraq or Astan and making the service look like indentured servitude.
I don’t understand these two sentences paired together. If the army won’t take them, what does it mean that they exchanged a civil conviction for agreeing to enlist? They offered to, or a judged passed a sentence that can’t be carried out?
My folks were friends with someone who picked going to boot camp rather than jail for statutory rape, but that was in the 70s. These days a lot of states would have thrown it out of court because he was only a year or two older than his girlfriend.
Basically, yes, that is what that means. Unless you can get the judge who decided the case to change his decision, the person is permanantly disqualifed from service in the Army.