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Recruiting Trends, Ours

Army of dolts and criminals, or army of opportunity? Some media and DoD articles on the expanding wartime military. We’ll start with NPR’s report on waivers for substandard recruits: 

Morning Edition, April 17, 2008 · The Army is meeting its recruiting goals partly by accepting more enlistees who lack high school diplomas, who have low scores on the military’s aptitude test or receive waivers for criminal and medical problems.

Army documents obtained by NPR link the lowered standards to a drop since November 2001 in the number of men interested in joining up.

“They are trying to grow the Army during wartime, during an unpopular war, so some of the best recruits are deciding not to come into the Army,” NPR’s Tom Bowman tells Steve Inskeep.

Back in the early 1990s almost 100 percent of Army enlistees had a high school diploma. But the Army documents show the percentage has dropped to 79 percent in recent years.

“That’s a real problem because a high school diploma, recruiters see that as an indicator of success … of completing training and actually becoming a better soldier,” Bowman says. “That’s something they’ve watched for years and they’re really concerned about it.”

The documents also show that waivers for serious misdemeanors increased from 3,002 in 2005 to 8,259 in 2007. The most serious criminal misconduct charges include burglary, narcotics/drug charges, aggravated assault, larceny, and breaking and entering.

Yeah, well there’s a long tradition of the military creating opportunities for turning people’s lives around.  It would be interesting to see a comparative study of recidivism and life achievement rates for high school dropouts with criminal problems who enter the military, as opposed to those who enter the prison system or any kind of social betterment program. 

An Army analysis of this “waiver pool,” shows that these soldiers tended to have better performance in basic training, re-enlist at a higher rate, are promoted to the rank of sergeant more quickly and receive more medals for valor than those without waivers.

But the analysis also shows that waiver recruits are more likely than non-waiver recruits to be drummed out of the Army due to misconduct, desertion and failure to complete alcohol rehabilitation.

“It’s sort of a double-edged sword, and clearly the Army is going to have to sort of calibrate how they bring these waiver folks in to make sure that they get those who are successful … as opposed to those who become deserters,” Bowman says.

Here are NPR’s charts:

It’s not entirely clear why the following chart is included. The article doesn’t discuss race and there is no context, explanatory material or even supporting numbers presented to help readers understand.  I’m guessing NPR’s point is, the Army is less diverse, blacks and Hispanics refuse to fight the white man’s war. I dunno.

Seeing as blacks and Hispanics tend to have lower academic performance numbers and disproportionate representatoin in criminal statistics both as perps and victims, you’d think increased military waivers means increased opportunity for betterment down what has always been a traditional path of social advancement for minorities. 

This February DoD article, a tour de force of public affairs rhetoric woefully short on specifics, says fiscal 2008 recruitment and 2010 military expansion goals are on track or being exceeded. It also includes these bits of information about who is enlisting, or attempting to:

The vast majority of military enlistees meet a high-quality education standard, possessing either a high school diploma or a general equivalency degree, Chu said. And, the percentage of military members with either a high school diploma or a GED surpasses the national average of 80 percent, he added.

Many of today’s military members are married, and increasingly, the decision to stay in uniform is a family decision, Chu noted. Accordingly, he said, the defense department has proposed initiatives that would transfer unused G.I. Bill education benefits to military spouses, and other programs that assist military spouses in finding career employment opportunities and childcare services.

The Army “is still the best-trained, best-equipped, best-led Army in the world,” reported Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Rochelle, deputy chief of staff for personnel. However, after seven years of war the Army has become “out-of-balance,” Rochelle said.

Restoring balance and enhancing readiness across the Army “is our top priority, after winning the war on terror,” Rochelle noted.

Key in re-balancing the Army is growing it to more than 547,000 soldiers “as soon as possible,” Rochelle said.

“We are on target to meet this goal by fiscal year 2010,” Rochelle said. Army expansion “will help us return to shorter deployments, increased time at home between deployments, and greater predictability for soldiers and families in both the active and reserve components.”  

The current recruiting environment is challenging, Rochelle said, noting 3 out of 10 perspective enlistees between ages 18-24 do not qualify for enlistment due to health reasons, education shortfalls, or character. A good civilian job market and opportunities for post-secondary education are among the reasons young people cite for not joining the military, he said.

…

Meanwhile, the Marine Corps “achieved unprecedented success” during its recruiting mission in fiscal 2007, said Lt. Gen. Ronald S. Coleman, deputy commandant for manpower and reserve affairs.

“We exceeded our goal of growing to 184,000 Marines,” Coleman reported, by ending the fiscal year with 186,492 active-duty Marines in uniform.

The Marines also expect to exceed their next milestone by reaching 189,000 active duty servicemembers by the end of fiscal year 2008, Coleman said, as the Corps continues toward its goal of having 202,000 active duty Marines in uniform.

All the while, the Marines remain committed to enlisting only those people of the highest quality standards, Coleman said.

The Marines also have exceeded their retention mission, Coleman reported.

However, Coleman predicted that his service’s future retention efforts will “pose a significant challenge as our goals become more and more aggressive.”

Meanwhile, DoD reported a good month in March.

Topics: military, America

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:37 am on Thursday, April 17, 2008

7 Responses to “Recruiting Trends, Ours”

1. Carl P Says:
   April 17th, 2008 at 9:59 am

   Jules, the military (it really only affects the US Army in great numbers) is very divided over the lowering of recruiting standards, especially for “moral waivers.” Personally, I was sickened by a lot of the flotsam accepted into my battalion before OIF. Compared to the USMC I recalled from 1990 - 1995, it was an abomination.

   I hooched with a complete sh*tbird PVT who had been arrrested on drug dealing charges, reached a deal with the recruiter and the judge before pleading to a lesser misdemeanor, and came into the Army on a waiver. While I have friends who have indicated some success reclaiming these sorts of lost souls, this kid was worthless.

   While training as a combat instructor COIN techniques, I further was introduced to more of the “moral waivers.” The disciplinary incidents involving them on base was beyond any charting we could have deduced before they arrived.

   Personally, I would rather we faced a smaller force rather than one reduced by what Marines wisely term “that 10 percent” of lowlifes who drag down morale, occupy far too much of the vital time of officers and NCOs and can’t be trusted because of a lack of moral turpitude.

   While I very much respect Chu, it’s important to remember that in real numbers the size of the combat arms in the ground forces of USMC and USA will only rise by 8 percent by 2012. After 11 years of war, frankly that’s inexcusable, Jules, and the service chiefs, OSD, the president and Congress equally share the blame.

2. Sam Says:
   April 17th, 2008 at 10:54 am

   CONCUR–We’ll stated Carl

3. Go_Fish Says:
   April 17th, 2008 at 12:50 pm

   I heard this National Pansy Radio report this morning. What really ticked me off was the reporter’s snotty description of the Army “scraping the bottom of the barrel” for dregs. When I enlisted in the Army in 1978, you didn’t need a HS diploma or GED. That didn’t mean you were necessarily stupid. You still had to take aptitude and other tests to determine what MOS you qualified for. I would imagine those tests are even harder today, what with all the computerized and electronic equipment today’s soldiers have to learn to use. Hell, even grunts have computers in their vehicles. I can’t imagine what armor crews, pathfinders, and FOs use now.

   NPR and the rest of the lame ass media have been pushing the “soldiers are stupid, overstreched, suicidal, and uncared for” meme for the last four years and frankly, I’m sick of it.

4. MikeH Says:
   April 17th, 2008 at 2:40 pm

   Two things Carl, by your standards I would have been refused enlistment in the Navy in 1964 because I dropped out of high school due to expulsion. I subsequently entered the Marine Corps in order to get the electronics training that I wanted. In my ten years (overall) on active duty I attained the rank of Ssgt. So that makes me substandard because the waiver program is a waste, right?

   Second your extrapolation of the length of the war based on some psychic’s numbers is doubtful at best and detrimental at worst. Although we all know how easy it is to predict the future.

   BTW, when I was in the Marine Corps in 73-81 the manpower authorization was 172,000. That’s less than Vietnam and now, and we still had waivers.

5. Carl P Says:
   April 17th, 2008 at 7:09 pm

   The waivers I addressed, Mike, were not education waivers, but rather “moral waivers” for those who have been arrested, sometimes convicted, of misdemeanors we once considered verboten. These include reduced felony pleadings for theft, drug distribution, drunken driving, assault and other charges.

   The two young men I most recall from 2006 were low-level drug dealers who had been incarcerated, then released, and were ushered into Army service due to plea arrangements confected between recruiters, DAs and judges.

   They were worthless. The unit would have done better without them. They felt as if they were serving prison sentences, albeit in uniform. For an All Volunteer Force, they didn’t feel much like volunteers, and they basically acted as their previous disciplinary problems might have predicted.

   Even at the acme of the AVF in the late 1980s - early 1990s, we accepted into service young men and women without high school diplomas but who otherwise scored well on intelligence tests. To me, this is quite a bit different from those who broke the law and exhibited a pattern of involvement in the criminal underworld that should make them morally unfit for a high-tech military built on teamwork and accountability.

   The most typical waiver is for admitted experimental drug use. If we barred from military service any teen who hadn’t puffed some pot, we’d have very tiny branches filled with Mormons. Nothing against the LDS, but they wouldn’t provide us with sufficient numbers to field day a barracks, much less prosecute wars overseas.

   It seems to me that there’s a huge difference between those who willfully violate the more serious laws of our nation and kids making a mistake at a party. I cannot fathom why we have allowed into the ranks convicted drug dealers, narcotics traffickers, known violent gang members and burglars.

   If a nation of more than 300 million people can’t muster a fraction as many annual recruits as we routinely coaxed into service two decades ago, then something is wrong. Granted, there are social changes sweeping our younger generations, and today our military increasingly competes against colleges for manpower.

   But at the same time, 11 years shall have passed between 9/11 and 2012, and the real size of our ground combat components (most especially the infantry) in the USA and USMC shall be only 8 percent larger under current trends.

   Eight percent!

   As the sage GEN Scales (retired) points out, the entire infantry cohort of our USA and USMC could sit down in a stadium and watch a football game. No longer stop lossed, I would sit with them.

   I don’t want to sit next to a punk who robbed another drug dealer and got a break from a well-meaning judge and a venal recruiter.

6. Peace Like A River Says:
   April 18th, 2008 at 1:29 am

   Cables, dispatches and memoranda

   Cables, dispatches and memoranda for 4/18/2008…

7. Papa Ray Says:
   April 18th, 2008 at 8:41 pm

   For those of you wondering what is going on with the low recruitment rate, I have a few of my conclusions to pass on to you.

   First, the liberal “progressive” education that kids have been subjected to for the last several years has gotten worse every year. It is starting now in K1 in many school districts.

   Second, Parenting has gone to hell in America. Kids are spoiled rotten before the liberal schools even get ahold of them. It gets worse as they grow older. How many kids used to get new or nearly new cars for their first car or for that matter ever. Kids for the last several years have to have the best or most expensive clothes and shoes or they won’t be accepted by their peers. They have to be able to have privilages that adults used to not even have.

   It’s a mess and it is getting worse.

   Kids now don’t even know what is going on in the world and what is worse, they don’t want to know. All they are worried about is “ME”.

   Yea, I know this doesn’t apply to all kids, but each year, it applies to more and more kids.

   I could go on, but I don’t think it is necessary.

   Papa Ray
   West Texas

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