To improve recruiting, make medical standards match retention ones
Many of the assumptions that undergird the recruiting standards are outdated or simply wrong.
Lt. Col. Kareen Hart and Taren Sylvester | November 22, 2024
Commentary Personnel
It’s harder to get into the military than stay there—at least by the different medical standards set by the Defense Department. By making them match, the Pentagon could widen its recruiting pool without undermining the force.
Here’s an example. In 2022, following advancements in medicine and treatment, defense leaders decided that current servicemembers would no longer be automatically discharged due to HIV status. Yet potential recruits living with asymptomatic HIV were disqualified from joining the military until August, when a U.S. District Court judge in Virginia ended that ban.
That’s far from the only difference in the medical standards that govern who can join and who can stay. Moreover, some of these conditions are increasing in the general population, meaning that they are reducing the pool of candidates eligible to join the military.
Take depression and anxiety, which are reason to dismiss current
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2024/11/improve-recruiting-make-medical-standards-match-retention-ones/401240/?oref=d1-homepage-river
