Just because it sucks is no reason to come up with insultingly bad slogans.
And yet, the Army is meeting recruiting goals. I can remember extensive stretches in peace where the Army was failing to meet goal… And I mean for years. Back when I was On The Bag (Clinton years), the Army was desperate.
So… Hmmm. Why is that? Frankly, I suspect that it’s a combination of patriotism (yes, it still exists, and in large quantities), adventure, some seriously LARGE signing bonuses, and a lot of very hard work by individual recruiters.
And yet, in a recent New York Times article, I read: “While soldiers with criminal histories made up only 11.7 percent of the Army recruits in 2006…” Those recruits all got waivers. Throw in another 4,000, give or take, who got medical waivers, and you’re close to a quarter of all new Army recruits getting waivers of one kind of another. (Cite here).
Then factor in that the Army has lowered the aptitude scores needed to get in, and you begin to get the picture. I read in the esteemed USA Today the following: “In a written statement, the Army said good test scores do not necessarily equate to quality soldiers. Test-taking ability, the Army said, does not measure loyalty, duty, honor, integrity or courage.”
In other words, they’re not even pretending any more.
Actually, my math is a little wonky in that post. It’s not a quarter of all Army recruits who get waivers – actually closer to 1 in 6. But the point still stands.
Tranquilis, as the parent of a son who is currently working with the Navy recruiter in planning out his future college plans and career, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your comments. I’m finding some of the elitist (and completely uninformed) comments in this thread pretty revolting myself.
My favorite line of the Army Strong commercials is
the stregnth to get over yourself
Basic is so therapeudic. STill better than the old "We do more by 9 AM than most people do all day’ line. I don’t even like to be up by 9 AM!
My understanding is that not only have they lowered standards (and raised enlistment age, you can now join the regular Army at age 42) is that they’ve dropped the quota levels, so while they might be meeting goal, they’re not attracting new recruits in the numbers they need to maintain the force at projected strength levels.
Yup. And they all had damned good reasons, too. Do you know what kind of things they were getting waivered? I do, and I’ll bet you a sixpack you have no fucking idea, or you’d have not bothered trotting that out. Criminal records I’ve seen waived: Drunk Driving (one instance only, with extremely extenuating circumstances). Sexual misconduct - 15 year old kid got his 15 year old girlfriend preggers, girl’s mom pressed charges and got him convicted as sex offender - Never mind that they’d turned around and gotten married, and he was doing right by his family. Speeding and other moving violations - LOTS of waivers for these crimes, provided there no patterns of extended misconduct (too many speeding tickets can indeed dis-qual you). Minor drug possession, without intent to distribute can sometimes be waived, depending on circumstances.
And so on and so forth. Those 11.7% with ‘criminal’ records? By and large, they’re the stuff of normal every day life, the same kinds of fucks-up that kids and adults of every stripe are subject to… Hell, even the President’s daughter has a criminal record. Desperadoes, these recruits are not.
Simple, and blindingly obvious fact you’ve utterly and completely missed: Armed services reflect the society they’re raised from. Ask around… how many of your neighbors have a 'sheet? More than you suspect.
I have the picture. You, apparently, do not though. Yeah, they lowered them - to allow a waiver down to AFQT as low as of 26 in special circumstances, down from the 31 it’s always been (and still is, barring a waiver). Even then, no more than 4% of the force can be from Category 4 applicants, whilst 60% of the force must be from Cats 1-3A. Wow! What a plummet.
Not.
This is an absolutely correct statement. I had a kid working for me, an E-3 by the name of Carangi, who was simply not bright. He was one of those despised Cat 4s that everyone assumes are being taken advantage of. But by god he was a damned good sailor! He got more done than any two other people in the shop, with two exceptions. He busted his ass, he followed direction, he didn’t need supervision, and when he was in doubt, he came and asked. give me a shop full of Carangies, and I’ll move the world. People like him are not doomed to slave wages - They get trades, and they’ll earn a good living - with the service, or without it.
Go ahead - sneer at the absolute fact that tests do not measure the man. Sneer at the fact that the Army knows this. I’ll be busy sneering at your ignorance.
See above, IRT the test scores. Quota levels dropping are not a sign of lies, incompetence, or any other such crap. quota levels are set at the services projected replacement needs. IOW, when the Army expects to need fewer bodies, it recruits fewer bodies. The recruitment machine is not on autopilot - the throttles are adjusted as needed. If the quotas are down, it’s because the need is down. IOW, retention is up or the Army is projecting a need for fewer soldiers.
Age 42 was indeed put in place to aid recruitment, but mostly for the ability to regain soldiers with prior service. Do you really think the recruiters are out there hauling in bussloads of middle-aged men? Nope - but they do prize former service, when they can get them.
Oh, and the medical waivers? Busted bones, mostly. Some other items, on a similar level. One of my favorite questions to ask potential applicants was about their “busted bones, bolt, pins, plates, and screws.” I’d rattle it off as almost one long word, and it very rarely failed to break tension, usually getting a laugh. But sometimes they did have bolts, pins, plates, and screws. Then it’s “get the medical records, and the X-rays, and let’s go see if you’re waiverable.” Mild scoliosis is also sometimes waiverable, as is ritalin use before age 12, childhood asthma (if currently and provably resolved) and so on.
The recuriters ain’t fillin’ up the ranks with cripples - A soldier still needs to be able to be a grunt, no matter how smart they may otherwise be.
Well, according to the article, the kinds of things getting waivered include aggravated assault, burglary, robbery and vehicular homicide. If you want to claim most of the waivers are for trivial things, fine, but the military probably had good reasons in the past for excluding those people, and is now being forced to sing a different tune.
In any event, your earlier claim that “the vast majority” of soldiers meet the target demographic is untrue, if we assume that if you need a waiver, you’re not in the target demographic. To put it bluntly, the Army is letting in more people than ever who are criminal, stupid, or unfit. This has been well documented in the media. Are you denying it’s true?
I waivered a guy accused of murder, once. It was his cousin, not him, but the waiver package was still abuot six inches thick. But that’s anecdote, as is what you’re recounting. Give me some numbers. I’ll bet you that sixpack again that the items you listed are 1) seriously rare, and 2) fully and completely justified.
If you assume you need a waiver, eh? I assume no such thing. Waivers are exceptions, by definition. If they weren’t, they’d not be called waivers. Presuming the media’s numbers to be accurate, and in this case they are, roughly speaking, 75% of the applicants need no medical waivers. Yeah, I call that a vast majority. 88.3% have a spotless background. Yup, I’d call that a vast majority, too. Even if we assume that no waivers overlap (an utterly bullshit assumption - I’ve been there), we’re still talking nearly 2/3 whom have never had any serious medical issue in their lives, and have never crossed the law in any way. Further, when we consider that the vast majoity of waivers are for non-disqualifying issues, Yeah, I’ll stand by my position; it’s rock-solid. The services don’t expect that every good kid will have not broken a bone, or have not ever made a mistake. They’re still the target demgraphic, there’s simply a higher burden of proof that they’re qualified. Nothing more, nothing less.
Your continued inability to understand this indicates that you simply cannot grasp that. Seeing as you’re not (aparently) stupid, I’ll have to assume that your inability is, at this time, deliberate, and that you’re so wedded to your world view that I could physically rub your nose in the facts, and you’d still deny them.
I think you and I are done, on this subject - You won’t learn, and I won’t bother trying to correct your ignorance any more. Beleive what you want to - your familiar world view is safe from me.
You may consider 2/3 to be a “vast majority,” but I’m not sure anyone else does.
As to the numbers you’re looking for, in 2006, the Army granted over 6,000 waivers for “serious misdemeanors.” Serious misdemeanors include minor drug offenses, but also domestic violence and drunk driving. They granted over 800 waivers for felonies. And the point is that these numbers have gone way up in recent years – they’re over twice is high as they were in 2004.
Hence my point, which you’ve done nothing to refute: the Army is taking in a certain percentage of soldiers who before would have been rejected out of hand as too criminal, too unfit, or too stupid – not in the “target demographic,” in other words. The situation in Iraq has posed a recruiting challenge for the Army, which they’ve responded to be lowering the bar. I’m not even sure why you’re challenging that; it seems like a bit of a commonplace to me.
