The United States Military Service is quickly turning from the pride of the US to a rehabilitation service for felons and delinquents.
Today it was revealed that the Army and Marines would give even more waivers to those who want to enlist for felonies. This after they brought down the requirements for physical discipline, brought up the age at which a person could enlist, and had earlier given waivers for other crimes. Felonies, though? Really? COME ON! Shame!
If it were just some crazy felonies like.. I dunno.. Whale Hunting in Nebraska or something, I'd be cool with it but here are a few of the felonies that were waived so scum could join the military: assault, drug possession, sexual assault, and making terrorist threats. Hmm... Assault - maybe not so bad - I mean they are going to be trained to assault people anyways but maybe having a big temper isn't a good thing for someone who will be equipped with a weapon and interacting with some of the most powerful military machines in the world. Second, Drug Possession - Do you really want people who were on drugs and possibly still are to be in the Army, again equipped with a weapon, in Countries which have A LOT of drugs? I'm talking of course about Afghanistan, Iraq, and the US. Third, Sexual Assault? Is this possibly the reason that there are at least 527 investigations of Sexual Assault and Rape in Iraq alone? Just sayin'... Lastly and most ironically, Making Terroristic Threats, isn't that what we are sending them to FIGHT? I mean if they are making terroristic threats the Army should be sending them to be
This is really despicable and the only lame excuse the Army and Marines could come up with is that it is there are fewer recruits today meet their standards. So that means we lower the standards? This is an insult to those who entered the service before these Waivers were issued and a slap in the face to anyone who believes in the honor and service of the US Military. That proud honorable people who joined the military service because of their patriotism and love for service have to serve in the same Army or Marine unit as convicted criminals is a slap in the face of every current and former person in the US Army and Marines. These criminals will sully the reputation of our military and our image worldwide. Do you want to be represented by some criminal? It will be no small wonder that our reputation around the world will keep plummeting around the world when the first thing face-to-face interaction with an American could be one of these convicts.
Certainly a few of these criminals who received waivers just made a mistake during their youth or something and are now better people.. however it is safe to assume that not 100 percent of them are and even one such person is a disgrace to our Department of Defense, after all these men and women are suppose to reflect our volunteer "patriot" soldier Army.
The only good thing that I can say concerning this topic is kudos to the US Air Force who did not give a single waiver in 2006 or 2007 and I am less disgusted with the Navy who reduced their waivers from 48 in '06 to 42 in '07.
Link to CNN story here
1 comment:
Without getting into the nuts and bolts of how the waivers work, somethign the AP story completely neglected to include, I'd like to point out that your headline is completely inaccurate.
The military cannot lower entrance requirements. The only entity that can do that is Congress. The possibility that waivers could be applied this way and in these numbers have been in place, without modification, for decades.
Granted, recruiting has become more difficult. As a result, recruiters are more willing to do the extra work to get a waiver for their prospects where it wasn't necessary before and these people would likely have been turned away or quietly discouraged.
Even so, if none of these waivers had been granted recruiting goals for 2007 would still have been met, so the idea that this is happening in order to make quotas is incorrect.
There's a story in how the wiaver program works. I encourage you to look into it.
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