What Happens When The Troops Do Come Home?

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Sure they'll be grand, train 'em up to kill, get 'em used to blood guts gore and death, throw in a bit of PTSD then bring 'em home.

Two weeks ago, the Pentagon announced the "good news" that the army had met its recruiting goal for October, the first month in a five-year plan to add 65,000 new soldiers to the ranks by 2012.

But Pentagon statistics show the army met that goal by accepting a higher percentage of enlistees with criminal records, drug or alcohol problems, or health conditions that would have ordinarily disqualified them from service....

But don't you just love these two paragraphs.

"The across-the-board lowering of the standards is buying problems in the future," said John Hutson, a retired rear admiral, dean of the Franklin Pierce Law Center in New Hampshire, and a former judge advocate general of the navy. "You are going to have more people getting in trouble, more people washing out" before finishing their tour of duty.

And what must qualify for the Booker fiction short-list.

The Army Recruiting Command, based in Fort Knox, Kentucky, insists that it carefully reviews each applicant. "We look at the recent history, such as employment, schooling, references, and signs of remorse and changed behavior since the incident occurred" on how recruits with criminal records are regarded, the command said in a statement to The Boston Globe.

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