Yesterday’s Stars and Stripes had a piece about how the military services have had to change their definitions of what is morally and legally objectionable in recruits in order to continue to feed Mr Bu$h’s ego-war.

WASHINGTON — Faced with higher recruiting goals, the Pentagon is quietly looking for ways to make it easier for people with minor criminal records to join the military, The Associated Press has learned.

The review, in its early stages, comes as the number of Army recruits needing waivers for bad behavior — such as trying drugs, stealing, carrying weapons on school grounds and fighting — rose from 15 percent in 2006 to 18 percent this year. And it reflects the services’ growing use of criminal, health and other waivers to build their ranks.
Overall, about three in every 10 recruits must get a waiver, according to Pentagon statistics obtained by AP, and about two-thirds of those approved in recent years have been for criminal behavior. Some recruits must get more than one waiver to cover things ranging from any criminal record, to health problems such as asthma or flat feet, to low aptitude scores — and even for some tattoos.

The Goddess of War, and her illegitimate cousin, the Goddess of Greed, are insatiable bitches: both require daily sacrifices of humans to placate their hunger. Some clear-headed people would say that wars of aggression and conquest are immoral to begin with, and that any country so lacking in moral and ethical standards is essentially laughable when it pretends to superimpose standards of conduct on a criminal enterprise.

The goal of the review is to make cumbersome waiver requirements consistent across the services — the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force — and reduce the number of petty crimes that now trigger the process. Still, some Army officers worry that disciplinary problems will grow as more soldiers with records, past drug use and behavior problems are brought in.

Lt. Gen. Michael Rochelle, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for personnel, said the review is necessary. Now, he said, many recruits who were arrested as juveniles for what can be considered youthful indiscretions — minor fights or theft — are forced to get waivers even if they were never convicted of the crime.
“I do believe it needs to be done,” Rochelle said of the waiver review. “There are really anomalies out there.”

The waivers require more time, paperwork and investigation, from detailed health screenings and doctor referrals to testimonials about past bad behavior. Depending on the seriousness, the final decision can be made by senior recruiting officers or higher-ranking commanders. [emph added]

“I’m the big macher for personnel. I think we need more criminals, especially thieves and brawlers, in our Army, and I want to regularize this type of conduct when trolling for recruits. My job is to get warm bodies into the green bag, not to worry about what sort of people we turn loose in our barracks or on our city streets when they return from Iraq. All this pesky paperwork required to make these criminals acceptable is an encumbrance and needs to be eliminated in many cases.”

The starkest difference involves Marines and drug use. The Marines require a waiver for one-time marijuana use, while the other services don’t, and 69 percent of conduct waivers for Marines who joined from October 2006 to June 2007 were for previous drug use. It was 12 percent for the Army.

The bulk of the Army’s conduct waivers during that time — 71 percent — were for serious misdemeanors, which can include thefts worth more than $500, any incident involving a dangerous weapon on school grounds, or minor assaults and fights. A waiver is required even if the recruit was a juvenile and the charge was dismissed after restitution, community service or other conditions were met.

Any fool can see the Marine Corps will be a. more effective service with more drug users in it. Ditto for other crimes. If you liked to be braced when you went to school, you’re just the kind of recruit America needs for its 40 year involvement in Middle Eastern conquest.