Bottom of the barrel ...

Offered without comment via Oliver Willis:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Army and Marine Corps are letting in more recruits with criminal records, including some with felony convictions, reflecting the increased pressure of five years of war and its mounting casualties.

According to data compiled by the Defense Department, the number of Army and Marine recruits needing waivers for felonies and serious misdemeanors, including minor drug offenses, has grown since 2003. The Army granted more than double the number of waivers for felonies and misdemeanors in 2006 than it did in 2003. Some recruits may get more than one waiver.

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Update:

Fuck it, I am gonna comment. Do you realize the implications of the above? Do you realize we are turning our military into a haven for thugs and criminals?

"Ah, hypocrite," you say. "We know you went into the military to get out of an auto theft charge."

True, but we weren't at war. Yeah, we played little shit games, dicking with the Soviets and North Koreans, kicking over Grenada, but I wasn't taken in just because I was a warm body. The judge saw me as a semi-intelligent young punk who would only end up back in court at a later date if he sent me to juvenile hall. He did it to rehabilitate me, not to fill a dire need for cannon fodder and deck apes. To some it's splitting hairs, to me it makes a world of difference.

Now, my hope is some of these guys they've given waivers to, if they survive, might come back learning the lessons I did. Some might decide the military is what they were meant to do and stay in to make it a career. I wish them the best.

It's the ones who come back and use what they learned on the battlefield for nefarious means. The ones who would see the military as an education in the deadly arts and use that education for personal gain. The ones who've already proven they have no respect for authority. We've done posts before showing gang grafitti on American tanks and self-propelled artillery pieces.

Do you want members of the Cryps, Bloods, and MS-13 having advanced special warfare training? Do you trust these guys to show weapons discipline in an already tense situation over there? Me neither.

It's time to end this war, bring the troops home, and rebuild our military, returning it to the honorable institution it was before the Chimp and Rumsfeld got hold of it.