The fact is, is that Rumsfeld has lowered the standards in order to meet the recruitment goals. We will now be taking in drop-outs, and other low-standards individuals that may or may not meet the same fate as Lindey England.
Funny, I thought it was broken after eight Clinton Defense budgets that resulted in not having body armor for 145,000 man invasion force.
Reenlistment rates are at record rates the active force, especially those that have done Iraq tours. What do they know that the Dems don't?
The Army never should have stopped taking drop-outs.
There are tons of jobs Drop-outs can do, and it has a good chance of putting them back on track for a successful life.
Most jobs in the Army don't require soldiers to be all that well educated.
Never forget, educated does NOT equal smart.
What standards have been lowered? My understanding is that the standards have remained the same (except for the age requirements), but that more effort has been made to effectively train recruits by using more trainers. And from what I have read, the end result of this is that retention numbers have increased.
The ugly truth is, this is the closest thing to a real war (as far as being ongoing) we've had since we've had an all-volunteer army...and it's still not remotely as bloody Viet Nam, WWII, etc.
I'm sure it's harder to recruit for war than it was for a job training program (which was how the Army was selling itself in the 90's). I looked into the Reserves and different flavors of ROTC when I was graduating high school and they all worked very hard to tell you that YOU wouldn't be the one fighting in the unlikely event of a war. YOU would be living in a 3 star hotel with roomservice while those other schmucks went and actually worked.
That's kinda hard to sell these days (regardless of who the President is)...the news shows otherwise. It's not like we can tell the terrorsts to please go away. We're not in the mood for war right now.
They raised their standards and are now returning to an earlier standard, drop outs were regularly welcomed in the army in the past.
"We will now be taking in drop-outs, and other low-standards individuals that may or may not meet the same fate as Lindey England."
Whew, at least they're not taking the kids that lie about their age so they can join up like Audie Murphy and my dad did during WWII.