The Army is lowering some standards to meet higher recruiting targets

The Army is lowering some standards to meet higher recruiting targets
WASHINGTON — Faced with increasing demand for new soldiers, the Army has reached deeper into the pool of marginally qualified recruits, offered hundreds of millions in bonuses and relaxed the process for granting waivers for marijuana use.
...So long as the Army, the largest of the armed services, continues to tinker at the margins by accepting a small number of recruits with lower qualifications, the Army won’t encounter the problems it did in the mid-2000s, said Beth Asch, an expert on military recruiting at the non-profit RAND Corp.
...Smarter soldiers, RAND has found historically, are better fighters.
One study showed that tank crew members were less effective in destroying the enemy than recruits who had scored higher on military tests..."