Military lowered recruiting standards, but is not "sacrificing quality"

By Lee Russ

Thursday, July 27, 2006 at 01:58 PM

In a very typical bureaucratic press release a couple of weeks ago, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, David S. C. Chu, said the military has been able to fill its ranks without sacrificing quality.

Tucked away at the end of the story?

Chu said he is not disturbed by the increase in the number of "category 4" personnel joining the Army. These recruits score in the lowest category of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery of tests.

The Army recruits no more than 4 percent of its force from this category, meeting the DoD benchmark, explained Doug Smith, public affairs officer for U.S. Army Recruiting Command. For many years, the Army had a self-imposed 2-percent limit, he said, but raised it to 4 percent in 2005.