Military Recruiting

Facing recruiting shortages brought on by the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has decided to accept a greater number of recruits who score near the bottom of military aptitude tests, the secretary of the Army said Monday. Coming off a recruiting year in which the Army fell short of its goal of 80,000 active-duty soldiers, Army Secretary Francis J.

The search for a bicyclist who bombed the Times Square military recruiting office expanded quickly Thursday as the probe's focus turned to photos of the attack site that were sent to Capitol Hill and possible connections to previous attacks on two consulate buildings in the city. The early morning bombing at perhaps the armed forces' most visible presence in the nation's largest city rattled windows and nerves but caused little damage.

U.S. high schools would be required to aid military recruiters by turning over the names, addresses and telephone numbers of their students under a federal bill that has drawn fire from educators and privacy advocates. Nearly half of the schools in California and about a third nationwide restrict recruiters' access to that information or to their campuses, according to the Department of Defense.

Tim Casper, a crew cut-sporting 15-year-old from Victorville, peered into the computer monitor and hunched slightly as he maneuvered the video game's soldier into a flanking position. Using a keyboard, Casper ordered the soldier to lob a grenade, then slap a new magazine into his assault rifle. Creeping past the burned-out shell of a Humvee, the soldier fired a quick burst into the back of what looked like the enemy.

Texas Gov. George W. Bush, using the nation's oldest VFW post as a backdrop, told an audience of war veterans Tuesday that under the Clinton-Gore administration the morale and readiness of the American military has fallen off dangerously.

Army Secretary Louis Caldera on Tuesday proposed making it easier for young people without high school diplomas to join the Army, a move that could help a large pool of young Latinos but also could stir charges that the service is lowering its standards.

Struggling to boost it ranks in wartime, the Army has sharply increased the number of recruits who would normally be barred because of criminal misconduct or alcohol and illegal drug problems, again raising concerns that the Army is lowering its standards to make recruiting goals. Last year, almost 1 in 6 Army recruits had a problem in their background that would have disqualified them from military service.

The men attempting to recruit a former soldier in the Fedayeen Saddam militia for today's war against the Americans took him to a bearded sheik seated in a pickup truck. They appealed to the mortar expert's sense of nationalism and then to his religious conviction. The Americans have done nothing for Iraqis. They defile the homeland. Attacking the American occupiers is the only way to make them leave, the recruiters argued.

Looking more like a student than a soldier, the young Indian in jeans and a T-shirt snapped his heels together and stood at attention in front of an American flag. He raised his right hand and pledged to defend the United States against all enemies. The enlistment ceremony earlier this month at a military center near Los Angeles International Airport took less than five minutes. With that, he became the 101st person in Los Angeles to join the Army under a program that significantly increases the number of immigrants eligible to serve.

Tens of thousands of men have flocked to military recruiting centers over the past two weeks in a major public mobilization that could eventually double the size of Saudi Arabia's armed forces and place at least six new divisions along its most vulnerable borders.