Army Is Enlisting More Low-Scoring Recruits

The Army met its recruiting goal for November by again accepting a high percentage of recruits who scored in the lowest category on the military’s aptitude test, Pentagon officials said Thursday, raising renewed concerns that the quality of the all-volunteer force would suffer.

The Army exceeded its 5,600 recruit goal by 256 for November, and the Army Reserve brought in 1,454 recruits, exceeding its target by 112. To do so, they accepted a “double digit” percentage of recruits who scored from 16 to 30 out of a possible 99 on the military’s aptitude test, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Last month, the Baltimore Sun reported that the Army had reached its recruiting goals in October by accepting 12% from low scorers, known as Category IV recruits. The Army may accept no more than 4% annually, Defense Department rules say. Although officials last month disclosed the percentage accepted in October, they refused to reveal the November figure.

“We are not giving out [aptitude test] categories during the course of the year,” said Douglas Smith, a spokesman for the Army Recruiting Command at Ft. Knox, Ky.

Army officials say that at the end of the recruiting year on Sept. 30, the total percentage of Category IV soldiers will be no more than 4%.

For at least a decade, the Army kept its Category IV soldiers to 2% of its recruitment pool. But last year, faced with a difficult recruiting climate because of the war in Iraq, Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey decided to double the number of Category IV soldiers.

“We will be at 4% at the end of the fiscal year, that’s what matters,” said Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the Army.

The increasing reliance on the lowest-scoring recruits is troubling to former officers who worry that the quality of the force will erode. They say that the increasingly high-tech Army needs qualified soldiers. And with troops facing more complex duties, good judgment is crucial.

“We are putting more responsibility on the shoulders of privates, probably more than any time in our history,” said retired Lt. Col. Charles Krohn, a Vietnam War veteran who worked as a speechwriter for the head of Army personnel in the 1980s. “You don’t want [low-scoring recruits] wandering into a mosque in Baghdad.”

The Army already had brought in 4% from Category IV -- or about 2,900 of its 73,000 recruits -- for the 2005 recruiting year, which ended Sept. 30.

In 2004, the Army accepted 440 soldiers from the lowest category, or about 0.6% of 70,000 recruits.

In addition, the Army is beginning to see an erosion in the percentage of soldiers reenlisting. Some analysts blame repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.