The Army’s acting secretary and top general said Wednesday that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., will not hold up Pentagon nominees after they attempted to debunk a recent article about the service recruiting soldiers with a history of self-mutilation.
“We had a lengthy discussion … relating to them that there is no change and this was essentially a mischaracterization of the [Army recruiting] policy. They just wanted us to send them back a note in writing, which will be back there today I believe,” Acting Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told reporters this morning. “They will not hold the nominations.”
McCarthy and Gen. Mark Milley, the Army chief of staff, met with the Senate Armed Services chairman and the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, at a ceremony honoring McCain at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Virginia.
Just hours earlier, McCain had railed against the Army and threatened to hold nominees over an article alleging it had changed recruiting policy in August to allow waivers for people with histories of cutting themselves, depression, and drug and alcohol abuse, but had not notified his committee.
“We should have been told about this before it showed up in a USA Today article,” McCain said Tuesday morning. “To just announce that we’re changing the criteria for requiring people to serve in military is not something that this committee finds acceptable.”
Milley, who joined McCarthy Wednesday for a breakfast with reporters, knocked down the claims in the article, saying no recruiting standards have been changed.
“When it said that we are letting people in who have a history of cutting themselves, self mutilation, that is not true,” Milley said. “When it said that we are letting people in who have serious mental health conditions such as bipolar or other types of behavior health issues, not true. People who have a criminal background, not true.”
However, the Army did change the level at which service waivers are considered beginning in August, he said.
In 2009, the authority to approve service waivers was elevated to the Department of the Army level; the service has now moved that authority back down to the two-star general in charge of its recruiting command, Milley said.
“The Army hasn’t reduced standards or changed standards, and oh, by the way, the Army couldn’t do that even if it wanted to because the standards are Department of Defense standards,” he said.
