Army Denies Lowering Recruitment Standards (while doing just that)

[UpInArms]

http://www.voicesmag.com/Archives/News/oct2005/army_denies_lowering_standards_100405.htm

The Army's top official says the service will revise its recruitment qualifications to allow enlistment of more high school drop-outs and those who scored lower on mental qualification tests, but denied the move was a lowering of standards.

Army Secretary Noel Harvey, along with Gen. Richard Cody, vice chief of staff, told a gathering of the annual Association of the U.S. Army the service would revert to lower Department of Defense entrance requirements. The Army had been using higher recruiting standards, but has faced chronic enlistment shortfalls - the worst since 1979, the early years following the Vietnam War.

DoD "standards on qualification tests call for at least 60 percent Category 1 to 3 and 4 percent Category 4," the lowest end, Harvey said. "The other services follow that standard and the Army National Guard always followed it as well. But the active Army chose a standard of 67 percent in Categories 1-3, and 2 percent Category 4."

Now, however, the Army will adopt the lower Pentagon standards.

...more...

[tk2kewl]

1. A radio report said they were recruiting using Craig's List now too

:silly:

[saigon68]

10. ITS MCNAMARA'S MORONS project 100,000 Redux 2005

Project 100,000:
Testimony and Report on the
Study of Vietnam War Era
Low Aptitude Military Recruits

http://members.aol.com/vetschoice/100-1.htm

On August 23, 1966, in a speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars (ahem), Robert Strange McNamara declared in no uncertain terms:

The poor of America have not had the opportunity to earn their fair share of this Nation's abundance, but they can be given an opportunity to serve in their Country's defense, and they can be given an opportunity to return to civilian life with skills and aptitudes which for them and their families will reverse the downward spiral of human decay.

Two months later, on October 1st, as an adjunct to Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, Robert Strange McNamara started inducting into the military men who previously would not have qualified in a million years.

He called it Project 100,000 and it had, one reluctantly admits, a kind of askew genius. A sort of foolish consistency. In the press, the Secretary of Defense gave three main purposes for the project:

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

2. Lower Mental Qualification Standards?

So now even Retards like Shrub can enlist!

[Debau2005]

3. And..

These people are then going to, potentially, be used to "protect" me in times of National Disaster, or be used to quarantine parts of the country in case of an Avian Flu outbreak?

Just what I want is a mentally deranged, high school drop out with an M-16 providing my defense! :yoiks:

[Fluffdaddy]

4. Now if only those Neo-cons and Freeper fighting keyboarders would

join the Army we would have enough troops to fight in Iraq and then invade Iran, Syria and North Korea too. Fu@king chicken-hawks that they are.

[BrotherBuzz]

8. Neo-con freepers test at Category five.....

and the Army hasn't dipped into category five since WWII. Heck, even McNamara's One Hundred Thousand were "Cat fours" (Category four). There are standards, and then there are standards - I'm just saying.
:shrug:

On edit: I scored a little higher then category five in my daze, but I'm speiling like one today.....:crazy:

[bushisanidiot]

5. What this country needs is MORE stupid people with guns!!

omigod..

the repukes are morons.

[Fluffdaddy]

6. Sorry double post

[readmylips]

7. I pray for a member of my family who joined the reserves....

This kid's father was a 25 year Army doctor in the special forces. His father died at 52 of a heart attack. The kid was born with a hearing problem and developed a speech problem, and has learning problem. The kid is 30 but more like a 15 year old. We were shocked when he called us to say the Army reserves had accepted him. He said, I want to make my daddy proud. The kid has problems keeping a job at McDonald's or Starbucks, never mind, taking arms to fight a ruthless war.

He's on his way to Iraq. I hope I don't have to post here in the future that he came back in a body bag.

[Roland99]

9. The recruiting shortfall is due to a "healthy economy"...AH HA HA HA HA HA

Army recruiting hit by healthy economy, Iraq
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7BCCB6E26B-8A09-42BD-9A08-07F604E84B03%7D

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. Army recruiters have a tough time finding new soldiers because of a healthy economy, the ongoing war in Iraq and increasingly reluctant parents, U.S. Army Secretary Francis Harvey said Monday.

These three factors have made it hard for the Army to meet its goals than in the early 1990s, when the Army was considerably larger and needed many more recruits each year, Harvey said at a press conference during the Association of the United States Army Convention. Nonetheless, he said, the service has generally met its recruiting goals so far.

In fiscal 2005, which ended Sept. 30, the Army recruited about 73,000 soldiers. This is only slightly below its average of 74,000 recruits per year over the past decade, even though it is less than the Army currently seeks, he said.

A "healthy economy"?!?!

:wtf:


The only thing healthy in this economy are certain companies' bottom lines. Are we to now believe that *companies* are eligible to enlist? I can think of a few that should!

[saigon68]

11. There are several threads on this

[CoffeeCat]

12. Army Lowers Bar For Recruits (military.com)

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,78111,00.html?ESRC=army-a.nl

Army Secretary Noel Harvey and Gen. Richard Cody, the vice chief of staff, said Monday that the Army is using looser Defense Department rules that permits it to sign up more high school dropouts and people who score lower on mental-qualification tests, but they denied that this meant it was lowering standards.

Until Army recruiters began having trouble signing up enough recruits earlier this year, the Army had set minimum standards that were higher than those of the Defense Department.

The Army has had a recruiting shortfall of 6,000 to 8,000 soldiers during the past 12 months. It hasn't fallen so short of its annual goal since 1979, several years after the Vietnam War.

Harvey and Cody addressed the recruiting issue in news conferences during the annual convention of the Association of the U.S. Army.

[msongs]

13. so low even George W Bush could get in....again? nt

[lebkuchen]

14. How would the DoD define "lowering the standards", then?

TIME: How are you transforming the Army?

Schoomaker: We are developing a modular Army force that gives us much more rapidly deployable, much more capable organizations that cover a broader spectrum of the conflict. What you will have is a team of pentathletes. I want a whole basketball team of Michael Jordans who can play any position. What we must do is be able to have this pentathlete team better organized, better led, better trained, better equipped, and more strategically agile.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1053555,00.html

[Erika]

15. Vietnam again.

They want those warm bodies for cannon fodder. Cheney says this "war" is going to last for decades. See www.icasualties.org for the wounded and killed, and it's going to last for decades?

Let the rich republicans and their kids fight it.

[LynnTheDem]

16. We're LOWERING the standards but we're NOT lowering the standards...

OOPS! Already lowered em too damn far, obviously!

[joemurphy]

17. The Bottom of the Barrel

Back in my unit in basic training during the late Vietnam period (1971-1972) I was a squad leader. We had guys in that unit that were functionally illiterate. I remember we had to read the written test at the end of basic to one guy --

"How deep do you dig a cathole latrine?" Stuff like that.

In one inspection, a guy in my squad had two left boots shined next to his bunk ready for inspection. He had one right one on and was sitting on his bunk trying to pull the second right one on his left foot when I went around checking the squad to make sure everyone was ready. Remember, we were still drafting people back then so you had college grads in the same unit with a guy like this.

When they're talking about the lower rungs of the aptitude scale in the U.S. Army, bear in mind that they're talking pretty damn low.

With the draft you at least got some ordinary people. With the all-volunteer army you're getting the Graners and Englunds. The dim lights. Keep this in mind the next time you hear talk about our wonderful volunteer army and our never having a need to re-institute the draft.

[Blaq Dem]

18. Great! Now those beer drinking, crack-smoking Bush kids are eligible!

C'mon, Barbara, Jenna, George P., John E., and Noelle! You can join the military now!!!! Isn't it wonderful???

[Peter Frank]

21. Just as in Vietnam...

...children of the "privileged" lawmakers are strangely unrepresented on the front lines.

I guess that this has become the American way. The founding "G.W. is likely twitching in his grave paralysis.

[Blaq Dem]

22. If they're anything like the Bush kids....

they'd too high on pot and alcohol to qualify for the military.

It's ashame. Children from privileged backgrounds benefit the most from these wars for "American freedom." And they have the nerve to complain about paying taxes on estates (death taxes) they never worked a day for?

[expatriot]

19. like the Miers nomination, it's part of Bush's war against elitism.

In order to fill the ranks of his armies, Bush will look outside the "monastaries of book-learnin'." He's for the little guy like that.

[OneBlueSky]

20. next they'll be recruiting chimpanzees . . .

except that chimps are probably too smart to fall for their bullshit . . .

[Javaman]

23. Wow, talk about propaganda spin!!!