Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[PegnVA]

SLATE's Jan 09, 2006 article talks about the effects of lowering US Army recruitment standards...just a few lines:

HOW LOW CAN ARMY RECRUITERS GO?
Faced with repeated failures to meet its recruitment targets, the Army has had to lower its standards dramatically. First it relaxed restrictions against high school drop-outs. Then it started letting in more applicants who score in the lowest third on the armed forces aptitude test - a group known as Category IV recruits, who have been kept to exceedingly small numbers, as a matter of firm policy, for the past 20 years. (There is also a Category V - those who score in the lowest 10th percentile. They have always been ineligible for service in the armed forces and presumably always will be).
The bad news is two-fold. First, the number of Category IV recruits is starting to skyrocket. Second, a new study compellingly demonstrates that, in all realms of military activity, intelligence does matter. Smarter soldiers and units perform their tasks better; dumber ones do worse.
Smarter also turns out to be cheaper. One study examined how many Patriot missiles various Army air-defense units had to fire in order to destroy 10 targets. Units with Category I personnel had to fire 20 missiles. Those with Category II: 22 missiles. Category IIIA: 22. Category IIIB: 23. Category IV: 24 missiles. In other words, Category IV chewed up 20% more hardware than Category I.
Each Patriot missile costs about $2 million; Category IV chewed up $8 million more than Army's budget.