Almost a year ago, I posted about the increase in “moral waivers” for military recruits (see here, here and here). What was being seen was that the military was admitting folks in with very sketchy backgrounds, including known KKK members and people with known memberships to infamous street gangs.

Often, I hear people talk about how we should send prisoners over to fight in Iraq but, this is darned close and a lot of military folks are concerned about serving alongside people with such backgrounds.

Now, it appears that, because more bodies were needed for the “surge”, an even greater increase of these waivers has occurred. In fact, the Army doubled the number of these waivers and the Marines increased their waivers by some 70%.

So, how bad does it get. Just read the following:

According to the new data, the Army and Marines have allowed recruits who have been convicted of assault with a dangerous weapn, burglary, drug abuse, sexual assault; in a few instances recruits were cleared to join after convinctions on terrorism or bomb-threat related charges.

“I understand that there can be valid reasons for personnel waivers and recognize the importance of providing opportunities to individuals who have served their sentences and rehabilitated themselves,” Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the Oversight Committee’s chairman, wrote in a letter (.pdf) to an undersecretary of defense. “At the same time, concerns have been raised that the significant increase in the recruitment of persons with criminal records is a result of the strain put on the military by the Iraq war and may be undermining military readiness.”

The military only provided data on felony waivers from 2006 and 2007, saying information from prior years or about personnel waivers granted for misdemeanor convictions had been lost due to poor record keeping, according to Waxman’s letter. The committee chairman requested more internal documents about the protocol for granting waivers, whether the increase had to do with meeting tougher recruitment goals and any studies of the effectiveness of recruited felons the military might have produced.

Something tells me that these “lost records” might have some very disturbing truths to them. When the military is starting to do this to meet recruiting goals, doesn’t anyone else see that something is not working?

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