ABINGTON, Pa. — Saying the military needs to do more to compete with corporate America for quality recruits, Defense Secretary Ash Carter opened the door Monday to relaxing some enlistment standards — particularly for high-tech or cybersecurity jobs.
Speaking to students at his former suburban Philadelphia high school, Carter said the military could ease age requirements and bring in older people who are mid-career, or provide student loan repayments to attract students who have finished college.
There are few details so far, but Carter said the military needs to be more flexible to recruit and retain quality people.
The idea, largely in line with the civilian approach to recruitment, upends the military’s more rigid mindset, which puts a high value on certain standards. It reignites a persistent debate about how the services approve waivers for recruits who have committed lesser crimes, behaved badly, are older than current regulations allow or have other physical issues that prevent them from joining the military.
Carter sees recruitment and retention as major challenges to a military coming out of two wars and facing turmoil around the world.
At Fort Drum, N.Y., Carter told 10th Mountain Division soldiers that he knows they have many choices as they consider future jobs.
“Are we able to compete, are we able to keep up?” he asked the division soldiers, some of whom are preparing to deploy to southern Afghanistan. He also announced for the first time that some of division soldiers will deploy to Iraq this summer. About 1,250 will go.
Carter added that the Defense Department needs to be innovative and “to think outside the five-sided box” of the Pentagon.
Specifically, he pointed to cyber jobs as an area where standards could be relaxed. Military leaders have long complained that it is difficult to attract and keep cyber professionals in the services because they can make far more money in private industry.
This is not the first time, however, that the services have looked to reduced restrictions as a way to entice more recruits.
During 2006-07, the military steadily increased the number of bad behavior waivers as the services — particularly the Army and Marine Corps — struggled to meet deployment demands in Iraq and Afghanistan. The services let in more recruits with criminal records, including some with felony convictions, to meet recruiting quotas.
