Army News, opinions, editorials, news from Iraq, photos, reports - Army Times

Wallace: Waivers do not affect troop quality

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Army’s top training commander on Feb. 28 sought to dispel what he termed “rumors” about the quality of recruits who receive waivers to enter the Army and said the Army will continue to use waivers in recruiting.

After more than six years at war, the Army is striving to find innovative ways of filling the ranks and has relaxed some of its more stringent standards to widen the pool of eligible applicants.

Of the 107,410 active and reserve soldiers who joined the Army in fiscal 2007, roughly 21 percent, or 22,186, were granted waivers for medical conditions, drug and alcohol use, or misdemeanors and felonies, according to Gen. William S. Wallace, commanding general of Training and Doctrine Command.

Wallace said he can draw on his own experience from youth: He was arrested at age 14 in Louisville, Ky., for shoplifting. He recalled the experience in an interview with Army Times.

“My parents came, the cops had to load the bikes in the back of the cop car,” Wallace said. He and a friend had switched the packaging of a higher priced baseball with that of a cheaper ball and got nabbed by an observant cashier, he said.

With an approach to granting waivers that seeks to include all who want to serve in the Army, Wallace predicted the Army would continue granting moral and medical waivers because “America’s all about opportunity, it’s not about denying people opportunity.

“As long as it’s measured and as long as it’s under control and as long as it’s reasonable and seen as giving a young kid a second chance, then I think it’s a reasonable thing to do,” Wallace said, challenging critics of the Army’s waiver policy to go into the field to meet soldiers who have joined with waivers.

“If you’re concerned about the quality of the American soldier, instead of sitting around smoke-filled rooms in Washington, D.C., debating the statistics,” go out and see a soldier at Fort Jackson, S.C.; Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.; Fort Knox, Ky.; Fort Benning, Ga., or in Iraq and Afghanistan and “make your own assessment,” Wallace said to an audience at the winter meeting of the Association of the U.S. Army on Feb. 28.

In the past five years, Wallace said, the number of soldiers coming in on moral or medical waivers has increased at a rate of up to 2 percent a year.

All waivers are reviewed by at least six people. The records of recruits who come into the Army on felony waivers are reviewed by 10 people, including at least one general officer at U.S. Army Recruiting Command.

Here’s how the number of moral waivers breaks down for fiscal 2007, and the categories of waivers:

• 9.6 percent, or 2,122 people, for incidents the Army deems “serious misconduct.” That includes 598 convicted felons and 1,524 people who were charged with a felony that was never prosecuted. “If the judge didn’t think it was serious enough to prosecute, then why should we be the arbiter?” Wallace posed.

• 6.7 percent, or 1,492 people, for drug and alcohol use and admitted use of recreational drugs. These recruits, Wallace said, have no current record of using drugs. Each is given a test before they come in.

• 38.9 percent, or 8,637 people, for pre-existing medical conditions.

• 44.8 percent, or 9,935 new recruits, who committed misdemeanors.

“From my perspective the United States Army is an inclusive organization rather than an exclusive organization, and we’ve got men and women who are willing to lay down their past foibles and join the U.S. Army and raise their right hands,” Wallace said. “I know that those who have received waivers have had no higher incidence of misconduct or indiscipline once they’re in the military than those who have been allowed in without waivers.”

Wallace said it’s less about the waivers than it is about the quality of the individual, citing the case of an 18-year-old who was granted a waiver despite a felony arson charge brought against him when he was 14.

According to Wallace, the youth set a bee hive on fire on a tree in his family’s back yard, which engulfed the tree and leapt to a neighbor’s yard and burned down a garage.

Another soldier who was granted a waiver had been charged with a felony assault for being part of a group that stole a radio from a car outside a convenience store. He completed 80 hours of community service and paid for the radio.

“If an individual wants to serve, has all the stuff they need to serve, if they want to be a soldier and want to serve their country, if they’ve got the right mental attitude, the right physical and intellectual capabilities then we ought to give them a chance to do it,” he said. “I know for a fact that if you give me a young person, I’ll make them a better person upon graduation than the person they were when they entered basic training.”

RELATED READING: More news from the AUSA conference