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Articles: Military Recruiting: Personnel Crunch

Lawmaker: Recruiting criminals unwise

William Matthews, Army Times

November 9, 2007

Congress has passed legislation to increase the size of the Army and
Marine Corps, but the military may have trouble filling those newly
created ranks, said Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif.

In remarks to defense reporters Thursday, Tauscher said the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan have made the military so unattractive that
"moms and dads and spouses have voted with their feet," urging
current military members to get out of uniform and discouraging young
people from joining in the first place.

Tauscher, chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on
strategic forces, said members of Congress "are enormously concerned"
that the policies of President Bush have left the military
undermanned, under-equipped and so overworked that "we cannot
continue to rely on the fact that we can recruit and retain the best
people in the world. We have had to lower our standards."

To fill their ranks, the services have begun accepting recruits with
criminal records, she said.

"I'm all for rehab and giving people a second chance, but that's not
why we're doing this. This is about the fact that we need people with
pulses that are willing to come into the military," Tauscher said.

The practice may be damaging to the force. In a high-tech military,
"trainability and willingness to be trained" are essential, she said.
"If you have as the nuns used to say comportment issues, if you
can't sit quietly and listen, if you can't be trained and if you have
a predilection to pilfering or bigger things you're going to be a
decrement to your unit.

"We're going to be spending money every day trying to get you to be
all that you can be, but you're not going to be that." Lowering
admission standards to the services may not be "a wise investment for
the American people," Tauscher said.

Unfortunately, the military has little choice.

Even with $40,000 bonuses, it is becoming hard to attract quality
recruits, she said.

"It's not like we're out of Iraq. It's not like we're finished with
Afghanistan. It's not like we're coming home to rest and recuperate.
We've got a long way to go, plus we've got to replace everything with
a wheel and a wing on it," Tauscher said.

Readiness is "desperately bad," she said. "We have no C-1 rated
ground force unit in this country. We've broken the Guard and reserve
... and we have a military medical system that is a heartbreaking scandal."

"This administration is responsible for all of that," she said.

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