US military hires 700 recruits who have faced behavioral challenges

New Delhi: After revisiting its policy on which medical conditions bar applicants from joining services, the US military for the first time has permitted 700 recruits with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to enlist, according to a Wall Street Journal report. In June, the military, which has been facing major recruiting challenges, said that those who had suffered from 38 different medical conditions could serve as long as they hadn’t demonstrated symptoms nor required medication for treatment for three, five and seven years, depending on the condition. These conditions – which include congenital heart defects and tuberculosis –  were previously automatic disqualifiers.

The Pentagon stated that it will evaluate the performance of its new programme in six months time so that it had a year’s worth of data to analyse.

“We want to be cautious,” the WSJ report quoted Army Secretary Christine Wormuth as saying about how the service admits those with mental-health challenges. “I think we have to constantly be refreshing our approach and looking at conditions in this society,” she added.

These changes come amid one of the Army’s worst years for recruiting and as military officials are debating ways to enlist qualified recruits who have been treated for mental-health conditions.

The service fell 15,000 recruits short of its fiscal 2022 goal and it cut its goal for total number of soldiers in fiscal year 2023 by an additional 15,000, suggesting that it sees a longer-term problem, added the report.

According to Army data, only 23 per cent of young Americans meet the physical fitness, health, and other requirements and less than 10 per cent of them are interested in joining the military.

The military is also having to recruit from a population that is increasingly taking medication for behavioral, mental-health and developmental challenges. And public-health officials worry that mental-health issues have increased among young people during the pandemic.

Under the new rules, a potential recruit who has completed high school or college or successfully held a job without counseling or medication for three years for ADHD would be able to enlist.

A potential recruit who has in the past been treated for depression or other mental-health ailments, or has taken any medication for such conditions, can join the military only with a waiver.

The Pentagon has previously made attempts to relax regulations, which have drawn heavy criticism. During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, drug offenders and high school dropouts were permitted to enlist with waivers, which resulted in a rise in mental health problems and suicides among the troops. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram .