[Marxism] US army lowers standards in recruitment crisis

["Jack Cade" <jack.cade@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

US army lowers standards in recruitment crisis

Jamie Wilson in Washington

London Guardian, Saturday 4 June

The US military has stopped battalion commanders from dismissing
recruits for drug or alcohol abuse or poor fitness in an attempt
to halt the rising attrition rate in an army under growing strain
as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

An internal memo sent to senior commanders said the rising
dropout rate was "a matter of great concern" in an army at war.
It told officers: "We need your concerted effort to reverse the
negative trend. By reducing attrition 1%, we can save up to 3,000
initial-term soldiers. That's 3,000 more soldiers in our
formations."

Officially, the memo, reported in the Wall Street Journal and
posted on Slate.com, ordered battalion commanders to refer cases
of problem soldiers up to brigade level. Military experts warned
that the move would make it more difficult to remove poor
soldiers and would lower quality in the ranks.

A military spokesman told the Guardian yesterday: "It was merely
a question of an additional set of eyes looking at an issue
before we release potential recruits."

The Wall Street Journal quoted a battalion commander- as saying:
"It is the guys on weight control . school no-shows, drug users,
etc, who eat up my time and cause my hair to grey prematurely .
"Often they have more than one of these issues simultaneously."

A former infantry officer told Slate that he could "not recall a
single soldier disciplined or chaptered for the reasons
identified . that I would have wanted to deploy with".

Asked what the new policy meant, John Pike from the think-tank
Globalsecurity.org said: "It means there is a war on. They need
all the soldiers they can get. But it is a dilemma. You need good
soldiers more in wartime than peacetime."

The latest controversy comes amid a growing recruitment and
retention crisis in the US military. Last month the army
announced that it was 6,659 soldiers short of its recruitment
targets for the year so far.

On Wednesday, the department of defence withheld the latest
figures, a move seen by most commentators as heralding more bad
news.

The military's target is 80,000 recruits this year, but the army
only managed 73% of its target in February, 68% in March and 57%
in April, forcing the expansion of a pilot programme offering
15-month active duty enlistments, rather than the usual four
years.

The crisis has even led to fears - despite repeated denials by
President George Bush - of a return to the draft system that
conscripted 1.8 million Americans during the Vietnam war.

Major General Michael Rochelle, the head of army recruitment,
said this was the "toughest recruiting climate ever faced by the
all-volunteer army", with the war raising concern among potential
recruits and their families.

"Recruiters have been given greater leeway," Mr Pike said. "By
doing things to increase quantity you are also doing things to
decrease quality, but they have made the judgment that that is
the way to go."

One recruiting standard that was about to be lowered was a rule
governing tattoos in the navy and marines. "If you have
excessively prominent and vulgar tattoos they will not take you
right now, but that is about to change," he said.

A commander quoted in the Wall Street Journal linked the growing
attrition rate among recruits to a slipping of standards by
recruiters, who were under pressure to meet their monthly quotas.

"There are guys showing up at units with physical problems or
other issues who you would not have seen a couple of years ago,"
he said.

An army spokeswoman said: "We are doing our best to decrease
attrition level, but we have not and will not lower our standards
for recruiting and retaining soldiers."

Yet in March 17.4% of all army recruits failed to complete
training, while a further 7.3% did not finish the first three
years with their unit.

Last month it emerged that one recruiter gave a potential soldier
who said he had a drug problem advice on how to cheat a mandatory
drug test.

In another incident in Texas, a recruiter threatened a
20-year-old man with arrest if he did not turn up to an
interview. As a result all military recruiters stopped work for
one day to attend retraining classes on acceptable practices.

guardian.co.uk/usa



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