October 24, 2007:
Every
war changes the way troops are trained, usually because peacetime training
tends to drift away from what is needed in wartime. The war in Iraq and
Afghanistan has been no different. But in addition to training everyone on how
to survive convoy duty in hostile territory, the current war has also spurred
more research on what it takes to be an exceptional soldier. Interestingly
enough, this line of research is very popular in the business and academic
world. Colleges have increasingly been looking for tools, besides SAT scores,
to determine who would benefit most from a college education. It's long been
known that some college students start off tagged as poor prospects, but then
go on to do great work. Same thing in business, where employers are seeking
better tools to find the hidden hot shots.
For decades, the army has
been trying to find new screening methods that would identify the late
bloomers. The techniques the army uses now are somewhat controversial, as they
include recruiting more people who did not graduate from high school, or have
had trouble with the law (drugs or petty crime). For decades, it's been
accepted that the most successful recruits are those who have graduated from
high school, and have no police record. But the army has long known that many
high school drop outs, or young people with police records, can make excellent
soldiers. Most don't, but some do.
The problem has always
been determining which of the drop outs and juvenile delinquents were worth
letting in. The problem with these potential recruits is that they are more
expensive to train (because of disciplinary problems, or difficulty learning)
and are more likely to be tossed out (thus wasting all that was invested in
their training.) In the last decade, the army has made a lot of progress in
improving how accurately it screens risky candidates. It's not just the
improved selection process, but improved training methods as well. A lot of
high school drop outs were poorly served by bad urban schools. Similarly, many
of those with criminal records had already put that sort of thing behind them,
and were looking to the army for a new beginning. While it's something of a
cliché that "bad boys" often turn into good soldiers, anyone who has been in
the service can tell you of examples they served with. It does happen, and the
army wants to develop better ways of predicting who the changelings are.
Until recently, less than
ten percent of army recruits had been high school dropouts. But in the last
decade, that has grown to 24 percent, with no noticeable decline in the quality
of troops. Same thing with those receiving "moral waivers" (for having a police
record). That has gone from 4.6 percent four years ago, to 6.2 percent.
The army has had the most
problem recruiting troops for non-combat jobs. Patriotism, low casualties,and a sense of adventure, brings in plenty of
recruits for the infantry. But with support jobs, the army is competing with
the civilian economy, which has been booming of late. But the boom has mainly
been for those who graduated from school. Thus the army is attractive to drop
outs, and this has presented the opportunity to find those drop outs who are
truly ready to succeed. But the army has to be quick, because the civilian
"human resources" community has been watching the army effort with
great interest. Whatever the army can do, civilian recruiters can do as well,
and restore the competition for recruits, that the army usually loses.