People with a history of “self-mutilation,” bipolar disorder, depression and drug and alcohol abuse can now seek waivers to join the Army under an unannounced policy enacted in August, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY.I wonder if the Army cares that some people with mental health history are banned from even touching a gun.
The decision to open Army recruiting to those with mental health conditions comes as the service faces the challenging goal of recruiting 80,000 new soldiers through September 2018. To meet last year's goal of 69,000, the Army accepted more recruits who fared poorly on aptitude tests, increased the number of waivers granted for marijuana use and offered hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses.
Project 100,000 was a failure, but that doesn't keep the Army from reinventing it whenever the well of recruits starts to dry up.
The stupidity of trying to run a forever war on the backs of volunteers alone is patently obvious.
They run a forever war on the backs of volunteers because if they ran it on the backs of draftees, angry young people and angry mothers would get us out of it so fast, there might not even be time to photograph the few sucker foreign loyalists to the United States clinging to the helicopter skids again.
ReplyDeleteYours crankily,
The New York Crank
Is it too much to hope that these recruits will not be in the combat arms?
ReplyDeleteSo let me get this straight: Transgender people out, drug users in?
ReplyDeleteNot that I think marijuana use should be disqualifying in all cases, but they supposedly do, right?
Come to think of it, almost everyone I've ever known who served in the military got high on one illegal thing or another before they went in, so maybe that part of it is just being realistic, but the mental health part seems a little shortsighted, I would say. I mean they could probably find jobs that they could do that their mental problems don't interfere with, just like a lot of companies do, but will they?
-Doug in Oakland
3383, it is too much to hope for. But once they get discharged, no doubt The Sparkle Pony of Death, or whatever name The Company Formerly Known As Blackwater is known as, will happily hire them.
ReplyDeleteMy wife suffers from Bi Polar disease, one of the newly allowable conditions for enlistment. She is on a handful of meds every day and night but I will admit they finally got it right for her and she rarely has wild mood swings anymore.
ReplyDeleteTen years ago, I could not imagine the disasters she would have caused with access to an M16 and a Blooper. Say throw in a Ma Deuce for good measure?
As for me, from personal experience, as to 'bi polar' people serving?
I have to say No, No, No, and NO!
w3ski
The minimum IQ for joining the Spanish Army is 70.
ReplyDeleteThere is no such requirement for the US presidency ;-)