Army more selective on recruits

WASHINGTON -- Uncle Sam may not want you after all.

In sharp contrast to the peak years of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the Army took in no recruits with misconduct convictions or drug or alcohol issues last year, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press. And soldiers already serving on active duty now must meet tougher standards to stay on for further tours in uniform.

The Army is also spending hundreds of thousands of dollars less in bonuses to attract recruits or entice soldiers to remain.

It's all part of an effort to slash the size of the active duty Army from about 570,000 at the height of the Iraq War to 490,000 by 2017. The cutbacks began last year, and as of the end of March the Army was down to fewer than 558,000 troops.

For a time during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army lowered its recruiting standards, raising the number of recruits who entered the Army with moral, medical and criminal waivers.

Recruits with misdemeanors were allowed into the Army, as well as those with some medical problems or low aptitude scores that might otherwise have disqualified them. A very small fraction of recruits had waivers for felonies.

In 2006, about 20 percent of new Army recruits came in under some type of waiver, and by the next year that had grown to nearly three in 10. After the Defense Department issued new guidelines, the percentage needing waivers started to come down in 2009.

As the Army moves to reduce its force, some soldiers will have to leave. Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, has warned that as much as 35 percent of the cuts will be "involuntary" ones that force soldiers to abandon what they had hoped would be long military careers. -- AP