The Army Opens Up to the Riff-Raff (Again)

Yahoo News and 23/6.com cover the new "bad behavior" waiver for the U.S. armed forces. Given higher recruitment goals, the military has recently been forced to come up with new methods of making more persons acceptable for service and is now specifically considering lower standards for the service aptitude test and granting additional bad behavior waivers. A bad behavior waiver is where the Army grants a recruit a waiver for a record of previous bad acts (convictions for stealing, fighting, drugs, weapons in school) to boost numbers in the ranks.

Prohibitions on bad behavior (and their attendant bad behavior waivers) are only a recent phenomena in U.S. history. As late as the 1960s, criminal defendants were offered the opportunity to join up in lieu of serving time. But in recent years, the Armed Forces have taken greater steps to become a more professionally oriented organization with higher standards for recruitment than in decades prior. How will the growing use of these waivers and the relax in educational standards and scores on the service aptitude test affect the perception of the Armed Forces in America? Any thoughts?