US military grants criminals waivers to make up numbers

[RiverStone]

The Herald
2/16/07


The US military is allowing convicted housebreakers, muggers and drunk drivers who have killed pedestrians to join up to fill the growing gap between necessary frontline fighting strength and recruitment.

Thousands of volunteers for the Army and Marines have been granted "moral waivers" in the past three years to allow them to become soldiers despite having criminal felony records for offences from robbery to drug-taking.

The only candidates still barred from a military career are convicted drug dealers, sexual offenders and murderers.

The number of felony waivers granted by the Army for serious crimes jumped from 411 in 2003 to 901 last year while waivers for misdemeanours such as petty theft and minor drug possession rose from 2700 to more than 6000.

full story:

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/foreign/display.var.1193613.0.0.php


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What sad irony...the BushCo regime is granting moral waivers to criminals to fight an immoral war.

Aside from the obvious questions of how this could impact the command structure and morale of troops in the field; we then will receive these criminals back into society, with many having adding post traumatic stress disorder to an already troubled personality.

How crazy is that? :banghead:



RiverStone

[no_hypocrisy]

1. S'pose that means they're taking folks sittin' on the "Group W Bench" now, huh?

Mother rapers, father stabbers, father rapers . . .

[redqueen]

2. *sigh*

Prisons seem to be a source for slave labor these days. I wish I could say I was surprised by this move.

[Monkeyman]

3. Same thing they did for Vietnam

[dogday]

4. They should purge their criminal records if they

serve in Iraq, not just waive it but purge it all together... A felony charge follows you your entire life....

[PATRICK]

5. So which is more likely?

That the overall moral quality of such enforced recuits will result in more senseless looting and killing or that the sheer selfish cowardice of the overall group will leave real troops unprotected and deserted in need? And that either way the destruction of morale and difficulty in training(too soft to discipline
such recruits in a short time) will further deteriorate the armed forces in all real world results other than numbers. More and more thugs can thus be transitioned this way into Blackwell, which is more of a long term goal than any benefit to the US or its military.

[geardaddy]

6. Here comes the Dirty Dozen.

I heard about this on Randi last night. It's disgusting. How about waiving the federal white collar criminals? :evilgrin:

[RiverStone]

7. Agreed - that would allow...

Shrub and Shooter to go to the front lines!