USA TODAY story leads Army to rescind recruiting change
WASHINGTON – Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said Wednesday the Army has rescinded a September memo stating that people with certain mental health issues, including self-mutilation, could seek waivers to join the service.
Milley said the Army rescinded the memo because of an article published Sunday by USA TODAY.
He maintained that the policy on considering such waivers had not changed but had been delegated to a lower level for approval.
Milley said the Army had done a “terrible” job explaining the policy. He credited USA TODAY for bringing the issue to his attention.
The memo from Sept. 7 said that people with a history of “self-mutilation,” bipolar disorder, depression and drug and alcohol abuse could seek waivers to join the Army. The change, which was not announced publicly, was made in August, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY.
The decision came as the service faces the challenging goal of recruiting 80,000 new soldiers through September 2018. To meet last year’s goal of 69,000, the Army accepted more recruits who fared poorly on aptitude tests, increased the number of waivers granted for marijuana use and offered hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses.
Expanding the waivers for mental health was possible in part because the Army now has access to more medical information about each potential recruit, Lt. Col. Randy Taylor, an Army spokesman, said. The Army issued the ban on waivers in 2009 amid an epidemic of suicides among troops.
The change drew immediate fire on Capitol Hill, as Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, upbraided the nominee for the Army’s general counsel Tuesday.
“If you took a poll of this committee right now I doubt if you’d find a single one who would be approving of this practice, which we now find out about reading the daily newspaper,” McCain said.
Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the committee from Rhode Island, said he agreed with McCain’s concerns.
Milley met last night with McCain, assured him that the memo would be rescinded and intends to make that official with a letter Wednesday, Milley told reporters at the Pentagon.
The author of the memo, Milley said, was not authorized to write it and it did not have the effect of changing policy. Nonetheless, the Army deemed it necessary to disavow it after McCain threatened to hold up Pentagon nominations if the Army sought waivers for people with a history of self-mutilation.