June 20,
2008: The U.S. Marine Corps wants to
know if potential recruits have used marijuana even once. If they have, the
recruit must get special permission (a "moral waiver") to get in. Last year,
about half the 37,000 new recruits needed such moral waivers, mostly for the
one time use of weed. This is pretty intense, but not that unusual. The
recruiters have become much better of determining who's just been naughty, and
who is beyond redemption when it comes to drug use.
As a
result, the U.S. military, particularly the army and marines, no longer turns
down recruits who have criminal records. For the last sixty years, recruiters
turned down most recruits with a criminal record. The reason was that, since an
army depended on discipline to function, anyone who broke the law had already
demonstrated problems with following orders. Before September 11, 2001, the
U.S. Army found that 27 percent of recruits with criminal records (and given a
"moral waiver" to enlist), didn't finish their enlistment because of misconduct
(refusing to obey orders, or just a bad attitude). This was twice the rate of
troops who did not need a moral waiver. Back then, less than four percent of
recruits got moral waivers. That usually required references from teachers,
clergy or employers attesting to how the applicant had shaped up, and was
worthy of acceptance. But since 2004, the percentage of recruit getting in with
moral waivers has tripled to 13 percent. Yet there has not been a noticeable
decline in troops quality. There is still a higher percentage of moral waiver
recruits getting discharged early, but not double the rate of those without
moral waivers.
All the services have been looking at
potential recruits more carefully, and experimenting with new screening and
training methods. This, in turn, has led to more careful study of exactly how
well, or poorly, recruits do during their military service. These new methods
have improved the quality of troops, while also expanding the number of
potential recruits.
