An editorial in The New York Times today decried the U.S. Army about "lowering its expectations" and granting waivers to those convicted of "lesser" violent crimes, such as robbery, burglary, aggravated assault, and vehicular homicide.
Where I come from, a conviction for robbery can carry with it a pretty stiff prison term and is not considered a garden-variety serious misdemeanor. It is a crime of violence, a felony, no less. Vehicular homicide, while ending in the death of an innocent person, is usually caused by a drunk or impaired driver. The two crimes are not comparable.
The editorialist points out that 125,000 waivers have been granted by the four branches of the military service and implies that sex offenders are among those, but points to no proof of that. I don't know if that is true.
I am aware that a couple weeks ago, I was in court in an upper middle class suburb representing two individuals, one a young woman who was charged with a misdemeanor attempted drug possession (drugs found in the house after a "911" call) and the other a young man charged with a misdemeanor hit-skip (left the scene after hitting a parked car). Neither had prior records; both had been good students; both had done well in testing; both were enlisting in separate branches of military service; neither was being permitted to actually enlist unless and until the charges were dismissed. I realize that this example will be lumped with other stories as anecdotal; however, the respective recruiters said there was "no way, sir" that they would be accepted and could not be granted waivers.
Although I do not doubt that waivers are granted, I wonder if the author of the editorial has some definitive proof he or she is holding back because my experience did not come close to that reality.
So, instead of The Dirty Dozen, we have the Dirty 8,129 ... or the Dirty 125,000.
Posted by Bill at February 20, 2007 10:19 AMI have heard lately from several members of the military that military may soon deign to allow admitted homoseckshuls into their glorious forces.
I thought that doing this was going to ruin morale and cause mayhem and just generally be a bad thing.
Oh, wait a minute. There is already a ton of them thar homoseckshuls in the military, working hard and being fine, upstanding citizens. Just so long as they don't actually admit who they are.
Sheesh.