RSSThe few, the proud, the felons (and drug addicts and alcoholics)
This fresh-faced Navy recruit got into the military with the help of an ill-fitting-clothes waiver.
With the armed forces stretched to their breaking point in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military continues to have problems meeting its recruitment goals. The solution? Simple. Over the past three years, the military has systematically reduced their standards for new recruits, allowing those with increasingly shady backgrounds to join up. Things are so dire, in fact, that the Army can't even be bothered to come up with a new euphemism for the process, calling the lowered standards simply, "waivers for bad behavior."
What's it going to take now to actually stay out of the Army?
October 2004: Changing a policy that stood for six years, the U.S. military eases some restrictions for incoming recruits: 90 percent of new recruits must be high school graduates (instead of 92 percent) and up to 2 percent (instead of 1.5 percent) of recruits can score in the lowest acceptable range on a "service aptitude test" (meaning they can "serviceably" use a pen to sign the recruitment form).
Amount of new recruits needing bad behavior waivers to join up: 12 percent.
June 2005: Imagine a patrol in Fallujah with Marge leading the brigade. She's pregnant, in addition to being morbidly obese; she's downing a fifth of vodka every half hour, while snorting her weight in blow. According to the military, this behavior would be completely allowable under the loosening of the waivers in 2005.
Amount of new recruits needing bad behavior waivers to join up: 15 percent.
June 2006: Perhaps too many 2006 recruits were spotted discussing the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre. Whatever the reason, the military allows 4 percent of new recruits to score in the lowest acceptable range on the service aptitude test.
Amount of new recruits needing bad behavior waivers to join up: 15.5 percent.
October/November 2007: Faced with higher recruitment goals (coupled with multiple global confrontations that show no sign of abating), the Pentagon desperately tries to make it easier for those busted for trying drugs, stealing, carrying weapons on school grounds, and fighting be part of the the armed services.
Amount of new recruits needing bad behavior waivers to join up: 18.5 percent.
January 2009*: After the full-scale U.S. invasion of Iran, recruitment levels have fallen precipitously. Aside from drawing recruits from the usual demographics—gang members, serial killers, pedophiles, rapists, and the transgendered—new segments of the population are invited to sign up. Recruiters are spotted distributing literature in al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and Iran.
Amount of new recruits needing bad behavior waivers to join up: 48 percent.
* Projected
