a

GAO

United States Government Accountability Office

Report to Congressional Requesters

August 2006 MILITARY 

RECRUITING

DOD and Services 

Need Better Data to 

Enhance Visibility 

over Recruiter 

Irregularities

GAO-06-846
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

August 2006

MILITARY RECRUITING

DOD and Services Need Better Data to 

Enhance Visibility over Recruiter 

Irregularities 

Highlights of GAO-06-846, a report to 

congressional requesters 

The viability of the All Volunteer 

Force depends, in large measure,

on the Department of Defense’s 

(DOD) ability to recruit several 

hundred thousand individuals each 

year. Since the involvement of U.S.

military forces in Iraq in March 

2003, several DOD components 

have been challenged in meeting

their recruiting goals. In fiscal year

2005 alone, three of the eight active

and reserve components missed 

their goals. Some recruiters, 

reportedly, have resorted to overly

aggressive tactics, which can

adversely affect DOD’s ability to 

recruit and erode public confidence 

in the recruiting process. GAO was 

asked to address the extent to

which DOD and the services have

visibility over recruiter 

irregularities; what factors may 

contribute to recruiter 

irregularities; and what procedures 

are in place to address them. GAO 

performed its work primarily at the 

service recruiting commands and 

DOD’s Military Entrance

Processing Command; examined 

recruiting policies, regulations, and 

directives; and analyzed service

data on recruiter irregularities. 

What GAO Recommends

GAO is making several 

recommendations to improve 

DOD’s visibility over recruiter 

irregularities and the services’ 

ability to track and report 

allegations and incidents of 

irregularities. In commenting on a 

draft of this report, DOD concurred 

or partially concurred with four of

GAO’s five recommendations. 

DOD and the services have limited visibility to determine the extent to which 

recruiter irregularities are occurring. DOD, for example, has not established 

an oversight framework that includes guidance requiring the services to 

maintain and report data on recruiter irregularities and criteria for 

characterizing irregularities and establishing common terminology. The 

absence of guidance and criteria makes it difficult to compare and analyze 

data across services and limit’s DOD’s ability to determine when corrective 

action is needed. Effective federal managers continually assess and evaluate

their programs to provide accountability and assurance that program 

objectives are being achieved. Additionally, the services do not track all 

allegations of recruiter wrongdoing. Accordingly, service data likely 

underestimate the true number of recruiter irregularities. Nevertheless, 

available service data show that between fiscal years 2004 and 2005,

allegations and service-identified incidents of recruiter wrongdoing 

increased, collectively, from 4,400 cases to 6,600 cases; substantiated cases 

increased from just over 400 to almost 630 cases; and criminal violations 

more than doubled from just over 30 to almost 70 cases. The department, 

however, is not in a sound position to assure Congress and the general 

public that it knows the full extent to which recruiter irregularities are 

occurring. 

 

A number of factors within the recruiting environment may contribute to 

irregularities. Service recruiting officials stated that the economy has been 

the most important factor affecting recruiting success. Almost three-quarters

of active duty recruiters responding to DOD’s internal survey also believed 

that ongoing hostilities in Iraq made it hard to achieve their goals. These 

factors, in addition to the typical challenges of the job, such as demanding 

work hours and pressure to meet monthly goals, may lead to recruiter 

irregularities. The recruiters’ performance evaluation and reward systems 

are generally based on the number of contracts they write for applicants to 

enter the military. The Marine Corps is the only service that uses basic

training attrition rates as a key component of the recruiter’s evaluation. GAO 

previously recommended that the services link recruiter awards and 

incentives more closely to applicants’ successful completion of basic

training. DOD concurred with GAO’s recommendation, but has not made this 

a requirement across the services. 

The services have standard procedures in place, provided in the Uniform 

Code of Military Justice and service regulations, to investigate allegations of 

recruiter irregularities and to prosecute and discipline recruiters found guilty 

of violating recruiting policies and procedures. In addition, to help recruiters 

better understand the nature and consequences of committing irregularities 

in the recruitment process, all services use available information on recruiter 

wrongdoing to update their training. 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-846.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Derek B. 

Stewart at (202) 512-5559 or 

stewartd@gao.gov. 
Page i GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Contents

Letter 1

Results In Brief 3

Background 6

DOD and the Services Have Limited Visibility over Recruiter 

Irregularities 11

Many Factors May Affect the Recruiting Environment 21

Services Have Standard Procedures in Place for Administering 

Military Justice to Address Recruiter Irregularities 28

Services Use Information on Recruiter Irregularities to Update Their 

Training 34

Conclusions 34

Recommendations for Executive Action 35

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 36

Appendixes

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 39

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense 43

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 48

Tables Table 1: Summary of the Average Recruiters by Service for Fiscal 

Years 2002 through 2006 9

Table 2: Recruiter Irregularities by Service for Fiscal Years 2004 

and 2005 That Are Unsubstantiated, Substantiated, or 

Other 19

Table 3: Cases of Recruiter Criminal Violations in Fiscal Years 2004 

and 2005 by Service 20

Table 4: Substantiated Irregularities as a Percentage of Actual 

Accessions by Service for Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005 20

Table 5: Irregularities as a Percentage of Recruiters by Service for 

Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005 21

Table 6: Disqualifications by Service from Fiscal Year 2003 through 

Fiscal Year 2005 25
Contents

Page ii GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Table 7: All Army Allegations and Service-identified Incidents of 

Recruiter Irregularities by Disciplinary Action for Fiscal 

Years 2004 and 2005 30

Table 8: Organizations and Offices Contacted During Our 

Review 39

Figures Figure 1: Service Recruiting Command Organizational Chart 7

Figure 2: The Recruiting Process 11

Figure 3: Recruiter Irregularities Occurring at the End of the Army 

Monthly Recruiting Cycles 27

Abbreviations

AVF All Volunteer Force

DOD Department of Defense

E-5 Enlisted Grade—Five

E-6 Enlisted Grade—Six 

MEPS military entrance processing station

OUSD Office of the Under Secretary of Defense

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Page 1 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

A

August 8, 2006 Letr

The Honorable Vic Snyder

Ranking Minority Member

Subcommittee on Military Personnel

Committee on Armed Services

House of Representatives

The Honorable Pete Stark

House of Representatives

The viability of the All Volunteer Force (AVF) depends, in large measure, on 

the Department of Defense’s (DOD) ability to successfully recruit several 

hundred thousand qualified individuals each year to fill over 1,400 

occupational specialties. Since the March 2003 involvement of U.S. military 

forces in Iraq, attracting sufficient numbers of high-quality recruits to 

military service has proven to be one of the greatest personnel challenges 

faced by DOD since the inception of the AVF. The active Army, the Army 

Reserve, and the Navy Reserve, for example, failed to meet their fiscal year 

2005 recruiting goals. 

Recruitment of high-quality personnel is a tough proposition, made even 

more challenging in the current environment when the nation is engaged in 

combat operations. To exacerbate the recruitment challenges further, DOD 

estimates that over half of the youth in the U.S. population between the 

ages of 16 and 21 do not meet the minimum requirements to enter military 

service. Moreover, additional factors such as the shrinking numbers of new 

recruits in delayed entry programs1

 and the Army’s use of stop loss, which 

delays servicemembers from leaving active duty, indicate that the 

components may experience continued recruiting challenges as they 

attempt to meet their personnel requirements. 

To help overcome recruiting challenges, the military services during the 

past several years have assigned roughly 20,000 recruiters to manage their 

recruiting programs and achieve their accession goals. In addition, the 

services have taken other steps to enhance their recruiting efforts, such as 

1

Recruits in a delayed entry program include those recruits who have completed the 

enlistment process but not yet reported to basic training. The time period that recruits 

spend in the delayed entry program ranges from 1 day to 1 year. The Army now refers to the 

delayed entry program as the Future Soldiers Training Program.
Page 2 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

offering increased enlistment bonuses and other benefits. Despite these 

actions, many of the recruiting challenges remain. 

Determined to find ways to succeed in a challenging recruiting 

environment, some recruiters, reportedly, have resorted to overly 

aggressive tactics, such as coercion and harassment. Such tactics are 

violations of recruiting policies and diminish the public’s perception of, and 

confidence in, the recruiting process. Furthermore, recruiter irregularities 

can negatively impact the services’ recruiting ability by damaging 

relationships with potential applicants, and causing those who have 

influence over potential applicants to question military service. These 

influencers include parents, coaches, teachers, and other family members. 

Consequently, a recruiter’s actions can be far reaching and have significant 

impact. Given the large numbers of servicemembers DOD must recruit 

every year, there is ample opportunity for recruiter irregularities to occur. A 

2005 internal DOD survey reports about 20 percent of active duty recruiters 

believe that irregularities occur frequently.2

 Even one incident of recruiter 

wrongdoing can erode public confidence in the recruiting process. 

We looked at military recruiting processes in two prior reports dated 

January 1997 and January 1998,3

 both of which recommended that DOD 

needed to improve its recruiter performance criteria across the services. 

Both of these reports point to the increased stress on recruiters as a result 

of restrictive recruiting goals and long working hours to succeed in a tough 

recruiting environment.

This report addresses the following questions: (1) To what extent do DOD 

and the services have visibility over recruiter irregularities? (2) What 

factors within the current recruiting environment may contribute to 

2

Department of Defense, Defense Human Resources Activity, Joint Advertising, Market 

Research and Studies, 2005 Recruiter Quality of Life Survey, Topline Report, JAMRS 

Report No. 2006-002 (Arlington, Va.: February 2006). The response rate for the DOD internal 

survey was 46 percent. Because DOD did not conduct a nonresponse bias analysis, we 

cannot determine whether estimates from this survey may be affected by nonresponse bias. 

Such bias might arise if nonrespondents’ answers to survey items would have been 

systematically different from those of respondents. 

3

GAO, Military Attrition: DOD Could Save Millions by Better Screening Enlisted 

Personnel, GAO/NSIAD-97-39 (Washington, D.C.: January 1997) and Military Recruiting: 

DOD Could Improve Its Recruiter Selection and Incentive Systems, GAO/NSIAD-98-58 

(Washington, D.C.: January 1998).
Page 3 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

recruiting irregularities? (3) What procedures are in place to address 

individuals involved in recruiting irregularities?

Our work covers recruiting irregularities that affect all services’ active and 

reserve component enlisted personnel. For the purposes of this report, we 

define recruiter irregularities as those willful and unwillful acts of omission 

and improprieties that are perpetrated by a recruiter or alleged to be 

perpetrated by a recruiter to facilitate the recruiting process for an 

applicant. These recruiter irregularities range from administrative 

paperwork errors, to actions such as failing to disclose disqualifying 

eligibility criteria or instructing applicants not to reveal medical conditions 

or prior civil litigation, to criminal violations committed by a recruiter who 

is subsequently prosecuted under articles of the Uniform Code of Military 

Justice. Criminal violations may include such actions as sexual harassment 

and falsifying documents. We performed our work primarily at the service 

recruiting commands and DOD’s Military Entrance Processing Command. 

To answer our objectives, we examined DOD and service policies, 

regulations, and directives related to recruiting. We also reviewed data 

DOD compiled on recruiters and survey results on their opinions about 

their jobs. Additionally, we analyzed data the services compiled and 

maintained on recruiter irregularities. We also interviewed DOD and 

service recruiting officials, and recruiters in each service. However, we did 

not review irregularities within DOD’s National Guard components because 

the National Guard Bureau does not maintain centralized data. Although 

we identified weaknesses in the available data, we determined that, for the 

purposes of this report, the data were reliable for providing limited 

information on recruiter irregularities. We conducted our work from 

September 2005 through August 2006 in accordance with generally 

accepted government auditing standards. Further details on the scope and 

methodology are described in appendix I.

Results In Brief DOD and the services have limited visibility to determine the extent to 

which recruiter irregularities are occurring. The Office of the Under 

Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness is responsible for 

reviewing and evaluating plans and programs, including DOD’s recruitment 

program. DOD, however, has not established an oversight framework that 

includes guidance requiring the services to maintain and report data on 

recruiter irregularities and criteria for characterizing irregularities and 

establishing common terminology. Effective federal managers continually 

assess and evaluate their programs to provide accountability and assurance 

that program objectives are being achieved. Although the services require 
Page 4 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

their recruiting commands to maintain data on recruiter irregularities, the 

lack of DOD criteria for characterizing irregularities and establishing 

common terminology makes it difficult to compare and analyze data across 

services. Similarly, the individual services’ visibility over recruiting 

irregularities is problematic. The individual services use multiple data 

collection systems that are not integrated and their processes are 

decentralized, which makes it difficult to produce a comprehensive and 

consolidated report on recruiter irregularities. Moreover, the services do 

not track all allegations of recruiter wrongdoing. Accordingly, service data 

likely underestimate the true number of recruiter irregularities. Although 

likely underestimated, the data the services reported to us are instructive in 

that they show all categories of irregularities increased from fiscal year 

2004 to fiscal year 2005: allegations and service-identified incidents of 

recruiter wrongdoing increased from almost 4,400 to about 6,600 cases; 

substantiated irregularities increased from just over 400 to almost 630 

cases; and criminal violations more than doubled from just over 30 to 

almost 70 cases. Without a management framework that provides guidance 

and specific criteria to the services to track complete and reliable data, 

DOD and the services are not in a position to gauge the extent of recruiter 

irregularities or when corrective action is needed, nor is the department in 

a sound position to assure Congress and the general public that it knows 

the full extent to which recruiter irregularities are occurring. 

A number of factors within the current recruiting environment may 

contribute to recruiting irregularities. For example, service recruiting 

command officials stated that the economy has been the single most 

important factor recently affecting recruiting success. According to 

Department of Labor data, the unemployment rate fell each year between 

2003 (when it was 6 percent) and 2005 (when it was 5.1 percent). The better 

the civilian job market, the harder DOD must compete for talent. Also, 

almost three-quarters of active duty recruiters responding to the 

department’s 2005 internal survey believed that ongoing hostilities in Iraq 

made it hard for them to achieve their goals.4

 These factors, in addition to 

the typical challenges of the job, such as long, demanding work hours and 

pressure to meet monthly goals, may lead to recruiter irregularities. 

Moreover, performance measures vary among the services. The Army, 

4

The response rate for the DOD internal survey was 46 percent. Because DOD did not 

conduct a nonresponse bias analysis, we cannot determine whether estimates from this 

survey may be affected by nonresponse bias. Such bias might arise if nonrespondents’ 

answers to survey items would have been systematically different from those of 

respondents.
Page 5 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Navy, and Air Force measure recruiter performance primarily by the 

number of recruits who enlist and report to basic training, rather than the 

number who complete basic training, while the Marine Corps uses basic 

training attrition rates as a key component of the recruiter’s performance 

evaluation. This criterion may deter Marine Corps recruiters from 

committing recruiter violations because they are expected to perform more 

rigorous screening of applicants to prevent them from recruiting someone 

who cannot complete basic training and avoid the requirement to recruit an 

additional applicant. DOD’s Military Entrance Processing Command data 

show, in fact, that Marine Corps applicants have a lower rate of attrition 

throughout the recruiting process than the other services. Other Military 

Entrance Processing Command data from its Chicago station suggest that 

recruiter irregularities increase as the end of monthly recruiting cycles 

near. In our January 1997 and January 1998 reports on military recruiting,5

we recommended that the services link recruiter awards and incentives 

more closely to recruits’ successful completion of basic training. Although 

DOD concurred with our recommendation, it has not made this a 

requirement across the services. Recruiter irregularities can result in 

wasted taxpayer dollars when ineligible applicants are recruited and 

processed through a military entrance processing station, begin basic 

training, but do not enter military service.

The services have procedures in place, provided in the Uniform Code of 

Military Justice and service regulations, to investigate allegations of 

recruiter irregularities and to prosecute and discipline recruiters found 

guilty of violating recruiting policies and procedures. Each service 

recruiting command has a designated investigative authority to handle 

allegations and service-identified incidents of irregularities, and the 

services’ respective Judge Advocates have primary responsibility for 

adjudicating criminal violations of the recruiting process. Each commander 

in the recruiter’s chain of command has the discretion to dispose of 

offenses within the limits of that commander’s authority and parameters of 

the Uniform Code of Military Justice. To help recruiters better understand 

the nature and consequences of committing irregularities in the 

recruitment process, all services use available information on recruiter 

wrongdoing to update their recruiter training. This information includes 

results of internal inspection programs and routine recruiter discipline 

reports. The services also react to reassure public confidence in the 

5

GAO/NSIAD-97-39 and GAO/NSIAD-98-58.
Page 6 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

recruiting process when specific incidents or reports of recruiter 

irregularities become widely known. 

We are making recommendations that would improve DOD’s visibility over 

recruiting irregularities and require the services to develop systems and 

processes that better capture and integrate data on allegations and serviceidentified incidents of recruiter irregularities. We are also recommending 

that the Military Entrance Processing Command provide information on 

recruiter irregularities to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Personnel and Readiness.

In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD concurred with three of 

our recommendations that address the need for an effective oversight 

management framework to improve DOD's visibility over recruiter 

irregularities, and partially concurred with our recommendation to 

establish a reporting requirement across the services. DOD did not concur 

with our recommendation for the Military Entrance Processing Command 

to provide the Office of the Secretary of Defense with data on recruiter 

irregularities. However, the department did not disagree with the 

substance of these recommendations; rather, DOD indicated that it would 

implement the recommendations if it determined such requirements were 

necessary. DOD's comments and our evaluation of them are discussed on 

page 36. DOD's comments are included in their entirety in appendix II. 

Background Subject to the authority, direction, and control of the Secretary of Defense, 

each military service (Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force) has the 

responsibility to recruit and train a force to conduct military operations.6

 In 

fiscal year 2006, DOD committed over $1.5 billion to its recruiting effort.7

Each service, in turn, has established a recruiting command responsible for

6

Each of the military departments has the responsibility to recruit its own forces, subject to 

the authority, direction, and control of the Secretary of Defense. Secretary of the Army, 10 

U.S.C. § 3013(b)(1); Secretary of the Navy, 10 U.S.C. § 5013(b)(1); Secretary of the Air Force, 

10 U.S.C. § 8013(b)(1).

7

DOD’s collective recruiting budgets for fiscal year 2006 include $800.7 million for its 

recruiting programs, $663 million for advertising, and $551.6 million for financial incentives, 

such as enlistment or selective reenlistment bonuses.
Page 7 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

that service’s recruiting mission and functions.8 The services’ recruiting 

commands are similarly organized, in general, to accomplish the recruiting 

mission. Figure 1 illustrates the organization of the recruiting commands 

from the senior headquarters level through the recruiting station where 

frontline recruiters work to contact prospective applicants and sell them 

on military service. 

Figure 1: Service Recruiting Command Organizational Chart

8

The Army Recruiting Command is located at Fort Knox, Kentucky; the Navy Recruiting 

Command is located in Millington, Tenn.; the Marine Corps Recruiting Command is located 

at Quantico, Va.; and the Air Force Recruiting Service is located at Randolph Air Force Base, 

Tex. The Department of the Air Force is the only military department in which the recruiting 

commands for the active and reserve force are still separate commands. 

Source: GAO analysis based on service-provided organizational structures. 

Service Recruiting

Commands

Army

Brigade 1

Brigade 2

Region (Western)

Region (Eastern)

Brigade 3

Brigade 4

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

Brigade 5

National

level

(few sites)

Senior

headquarters

level

(one site)

Local

level

(several sites)

Frontline

recruiters

(numerous sites)

Battalions

Recruiting

stations

Recruiting

stations

Recruiting

stations

Districts Squadrons

Navy Marine Corps Air Force
Page 8 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Notes: The Marine Corps organization also includes substations beneath the recruiting station level 

where its frontline recruiters work. The Department of the Air Force is the only military department in 

which the recruiting commands for the active and reserve force are still separate commands. The Air 

Force Reserve Command Recruiting Service is similarly organized as the active component and is not 

depicted separately. 

Each service has at least two levels of command between the senior 

headquarters and the recruiting station where frontline recruiters work to 

contact prospective applicants for military service. The Army Brigades, 

Navy and Marine Corps Regions, and Air Force Groups are subordinate 

commands of their service recruiting command and have responsibility for 

recruiting operations in large portions of the country. The Navy and Marine 

Corps organize their servicewide recruiting commands into Eastern and 

Western Regions that more or less divide responsibilities east and west of 

the Mississippi River. The Army, in comparison, has five Brigades and the 

Air Force has four Groups based regionally across the country that are 

responsible for their recruiting operations. These commands are further 

divided into local levels responsible for coordinating the frontline 

recruiting efforts. These 41 Army Battalions, 26 Navy and 6 Marine Corps 

Districts, and 28 Air Force Squadrons are generally organized around 

market demographics, including population density and geographic 

location. Finally, the 1,200 to 2,000 recruiting stations per service or in the 

case of the Marine Corps—the substations—represent that part of the 

recruiting organization with which the general public is most familiar.

Of the approximately 22,000 total military recruiters in fiscal year 2006, 

almost 14,000 are frontline recruiters who are assigned a monthly 

recruiting goal. The recruiter’s monthly goal varies by service, but is 

generally 2 recruits per month. The remaining recruiters—roughly 8,000— 

hold supervisory and staff positions throughout the services’ recruiting 

commands. Table 1 provides a summary of the average number of 

recruiters by service for fiscal years 2002 through 2006 broken out by total 

number of recruiters and frontline recruiters who have a monthly 

recruiting goal.
Page 9 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Table 1: Summary of the Average Recruiters by Service for Fiscal Years 2002 through 2006

Source: Office of the Secretary of Defense. 

a The number of Army recruiters includes civilian contract recruiters.

A typical frontline military recruiter is generally a midlevel enlisted 

noncommissioned officer in the rank of Army and Marine Corps Sergeant 

(E-5) or Staff Sergeant (E-6), Navy Petty Officer Second Class (E-5) or First 

Class (E-6), and Air Force Staff Sergeant (E-5) or Technical Sergeant (E-6), 

who is between the ages of 25 and 30 years old and has between 5 and 10 

years of military service. While some frontline recruiters volunteer for 

recruiting as a career enhancement, others are selected from among those 

the services have identified as their best performers in their primary 

military specialties. All services have comprehensive selection processes in 

place and specific eligibility criteria for recruiting duty. For example, 

recruiters must meet service appearance standards, have a stable family 

situation, be able to speak without any impairment, and be financially 

responsible. The services screen all prospective recruiters by interviewing 

and conducting personality assessments and ensuring the prospective 

recruiters meet all criteria. 

To augment its uniformed recruiters, the Army also uses contract civilian 

recruiters, and has been doing so under legislative authority since fiscal 

year 2001. This pilot program, which authorizes the Army to use civilian 

contractors, will run through fiscal year 2007. The goal of the program is to 

test the effectiveness of civilian recruiters. If civilian recruiters prove 

effective, this would allow the Army to retain more noncommissioned 

officers in their primary military specialties within the warfighting force. 

Currently, the Army is using almost 370 contract civilian recruiters, 

representing approximately 3 percent of the Army’s total recruiting force. 

In general, training for frontline recruiters is similar in all services and has 

focused on ethics and salesmanship, with a growing emphasis placed on 

Service

Total recruiters Frontline recruiters

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

Armya 9,730 9,481 8,517 9,637 10,634 6,367 6,078 5,109 5,953 6,484

Navy 5,835 5,738 5,016 5,141 4,936 4,714 4,617 4,617 3,365 3,383

Marine 

Corps

3,401 3,494 3,287 3,343 3,641 2,650 2,650 2,650 2,650 2,650

Air Force 2,942 2,956 2,940 2,990 2,800 1,574 1,494 1,460 1,453 1,412

Total 21,908 21,669 19,760 21,111 22,011 15,305 14,839 13,836 13,421 13,929
Page 10 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

leadership and mentoring skills to attract today’s applicant. Each service 

conducts specialized training for approximately 6 weeks for 

noncommissioned officers assigned as recruiters.9

 The number of hours of 

training time specifically devoted to ethics training as a component of the 

recruiter training curriculum ranges from 5 hours in the Navy to 34 hours of 

instruction in the Army. 

After recruiters successfully convince applicants on the benefits of joining 

the military, they complete a prescreening of the applicant, which includes 

an initial background review and a physical and moral assessment of the 

applicant’s eligibility for military service. After the recruiter’s prescreening, 

the military pays for the applicant to travel to 1 of 65 military entrance 

processing stations (MEPS) located throughout the country. At the 

processing stations, which are under the direction of DOD’s Military 

Entrance Processing Command, processing station staff administer the 

Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, a test to determine whether 

the applicant is qualified for enlistment and a military job specialty,10 and 

conduct a medical examination to determine whether the applicant meets 

physical entrance standards. After the processing station staff determine 

that an applicant is qualified, the applicant signs an enlistment contract and 

is sworn into the service and enters the delayed entry program. When an 

applicant enters the delayed entry program, he or she becomes a member 

of the Individual Ready Reserve, in an unpaid status, until reporting for 

basic training. An individual may remain in the delayed entry program for 1 

day up to 1 year. Just before reporting for basic training, the applicant 

returns to the processing station, undergoes a brief physical examination, 

and is sworn into the military. 

Figure 2, in general, illustrates the recruiting process from a recruiter’s 

initial contact with a prospective applicant to the applicant’s successful 

graduation from the service’s initial training school, commonly referred to 

as basic training.

9

The Army Recruiter School is located at Ft. Jackson, S.C.; the Navy Recruiter School is 

located at Pensacola Naval Air Station, Fla.; the Marine Recruiter School is located at U.S. 

Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, Calif.; and the Air Force Recruiter School is located 

at Lackland Air Force Base, Tex. 

10In some cases, applicants are given the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test in 

high school or at independent sites apart from the military entrance processing stations.
Page 11 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Figure 2: The Recruiting Process

DOD and the Services 

Have Limited Visibility 

over Recruiter 

Irregularities

DOD and the services have limited visibility to determine the extent to 

which recruiter irregularities are occurring. The Office of the Under 

Secretary of Defense (OUSD) for Personnel and Readiness has the 

responsibility for overseeing the recruiting program. However, OUSD has 

not established a framework to conduct oversight of recruiter irregularities 

and provide guidance requiring the services to maintain data on recruiter 

wrongdoing. Although not required by OUSD to do so, the services require 

their recruiting commands to maintain data for 2 years; the Army 

Recruiting Command maintains data for 3 years and can retrieve case files 

back to fiscal year 1998. Furthermore, OUSD has not established criteria 

for the services to characterize recruiter irregularities or developed 

common terminology for irregularities. Accordingly, the services use 

different terminology, which makes it difficult to compare and analyze data 

across the services. Moreover, each of the services uses multiple systems 

for maintaining data that are not integrated and decentralized processes for 

identifying and tracking allegations and service-identified incidents of 

recruiter irregularities. Perhaps most significantly, none of the services 

accounts for all allegations or incidents of recruiter irregularities. 

Therefore, service data likely underestimate the true number of recruiter 

irregularities. Nevertheless, our analysis of service data suggests that most 

allegations are not substantiated. 

Source: GAO analysis of service-provided recruiting process depictions. 

Applicant 

Marine 

Corps

Navy 

Army 

Air Force 

Recruiting station 

Recruiter

prescreening

• ASVAB test 

• Physical exam 

• First enlistment oath 

MEPS

• Final processing 

• Second enlistment 

 oath into active duty 

• Physical exam 

MEPS

Delayed

entry

program

Service

basic

training
Page 12 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

DOD Lacks an Oversight 

Framework to Provide 

Guidance on Recruiter 

Irregularities, and Has Not 

Established Criteria to 

Characterize Irregularities 

Effective federal managers continually assess and evaluate their programs 

to provide accountability and to assure that they are well designed and 

operated, appropriately updated to meet changing conditions, and 

achieving program objectives. Specifically, managers need to examine 

internal control to determine how well it is performing, how it may be 

improved, and the degree to which it helps identify and address major risks 

for fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. According to the mission 

statement for the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel 

and Readiness, its responsibilities include reviewing and evaluating plans 

and programs to ensure adherence to approved policies and standards, 

including DOD’s recruitment program. OUSD officials stated that they 

review service recruiter irregularity issues infrequently usually in response 

to a congressional inquiry, and they do not perform oversight of recruiter 

irregularities. OUSD has not issued guidance requiring the services to 

maintain data on recruiter irregularities. Nevertheless, the services require 

their recruiting commands to maintain data on recruiter irregularities for 2 

years; the Army Recruiting Command maintains data for 3 years and can 

retrieve case files dating back to fiscal year 1998. 

Moreover, OUSD has not established or provided criteria to the services for 

how they should characterize various recruiter irregularities and has not 

developed common terminology because it responds to individual inquiries 

and, in general, uses the terminology of the service in question. 

Accordingly, the services use different terminology to refer to recruiter 

irregularities. How the services categorize the irregularity affects how they 

maintain data on recruiter irregularities. For example, the Army uses the 

term impropriety while the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force use the term 

malpractice to characterize the intentional enlistment of an unqualified 

applicant. Only the Army uses the term recruiter error to describe those 

irregularities not resulting from malicious intent or gross negligence. 

Consequently, if DOD were to require services to report on recruiter 

wrongdoing, the Army might not include its recruiter error category 

because these cases are not willful violations of recruiting policies and 

procedures and the Army does not identify such cases as substantiated or 

unsubstantiated in their data system. The Air Force uses the term 

procedural error to refer to an irregularity occurring as a result of an 

administrative error by the recruiter due to lack of knowledge or 

inattention to detail. If DOD were to require services to report on recruiter 

wrongdoing, the Air Force might not include its procedural error category 

because these cases are not intentional acts to facilitate the recruiting 

process for an ineligible applicant. In both cases, however, wasted taxpayer 

dollars result; unintentional recruiter errors can have the same effect as 
Page 13 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

intentional recruiter irregularities because both result in inefficiencies in 

the recruiting process. 

DOD’s need for oversight may become more critical if the department 

decides to rely more heavily on civilian contract recruiters in the future. As 

we previously stated, the civilian recruiter pilot program currently 

authorizes the Army to use civilian recruiters, through fiscal year 2007, to 

test their effectiveness. Future reliance on civilian recruiters, in any 

service, would allow a service to retain more noncommissioned officers in 

their primary military specialties. However, OUSD would also need to be in 

a position to assure that this type of change is well designed and operated, 

and that its recruiting programs are appropriately updated to reflect a 

change in recruiting operations.

Each Service Uses Systems 

That Are Not Integrated and 

Do Not Allow the Services 

to Readily Report All 

Recruiter Irregularities

None of the services can readily provide a comprehensive and consolidated 

report on recruiter irregularities within their own service because they use 

multiple systems that are not integrated. Currently, the services use 

systems that range from electronic databases to hard-copy paper files to 

track recruiter irregularities and do not have a central database dedicated 

to compiling, monitoring, and archiving information about recruiter 

irregularities. When we asked officials in each of the services for a 

comprehensive report of recruiter irregularities that occurred within their 

own service, they were unable to readily provide these data. Officials had 

to query and compile data from separate systems. For example, the Navy 

Recruiting Command had to access paper files for allegations of recruiter 

irregularities, while the Air Force Judge Advocate provided information 

from an electronic database from which we were able to extract cases 

specifically related to recruiter irregularities. 

Furthermore, the services cannot assure the reliability of their data 

because the services lack standardized procedures for recording data, their 

multiple systems use different formats for maintaining data, and in some 

instances the services do not conduct quality reviews or edit checks of the 

data. The services used the following systems to maintain data on recruiter 

irregularities at the time of our review:
Page 14 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

• Army: The Army maintains three separate data systems that contain 

information about recruiter irregularities. The Army Recruiting 

Command’s Enlistment Standards Division has a database that houses 

recruiting irregularities that pertain to applicant eligibility. The Army 

Recruiting Command Inspector General maintains a separate database 

that houses other irregularities, including recruiter misconduct that may 

result in nonjudicial punishment. The Judge Advocate maintains hardcopy case files for recruiter irregularities that are criminal violations of 

the recruiting process that may result in judicial punishment. 

• Navy: The Navy maintains four separate data systems that contain 

information about recruiter irregularities. The Naval Inspector General, 

the Navy Bureau of Personnel Inspector General, and the Navy 

Recruiting Command Inspector General all maintain some data on 

allegations of recruiter irregularities. The Naval Criminal Investigative 

Service investigates and maintains data on Navy criminal recruiting 

violations.

• Marine Corps: The Marine Corps Recruiting Command maintains two 

systems that track information on recruiting irregularities, one that 

captures reported allegations and another that only tracks the 

disposition of allegations and service-identified incidents that a 

commander or recruiting official at some level in the recruiting 

command structure determined to merit an inquiry or investigation. The 

Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigates and maintains data on 

Marine Corps criminal recruiting violations.

• Air Force: The Air Force maintains three separate databases with 

information about recruiter irregularities. The Air Force Recruiting 

Service Inspector General maintains a database that houses data on 

allegations of recruiter irregularities. The liaison from the Air Force 

Recruiting Service, located at the Air Force basic training site, maintains 

data within a separate electronic system on allegations of recruiter 

irregularities that applicants raise about their recruiters when they 

report to basic training. The Air Force Judge Advocate maintains a 
Page 15 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

database containing criminal violations of recruiting practices and 

procedures.11

At the time of our review, Navy officials told us they believe there is value 

in having servicewide visibility over the recruiting process and they plan to 

improve their systems for maintaining data on recruiter irregularities. Navy 

officials stated that the Navy Bureau of Personnel Inspector General is 

working with the Navy Recruiting Command Inspector General and the 

Naval Education and Training Command to develop a system that 

maintains recruiting and training data that will include allegations and 

service-identified incidents of recruiter irregularities. Marine Corps 

officials told us they are in the process of improving their systems for 

maintaining data on recruiter irregularities by merging all data on 

allegations and service-identified incidents of recruiter irregularities into 

one database that can be accessed at all command levels of the Marine 

Corps Recruiting Command. An Air Force official told us that as a result of 

our review, the Air Force modified its system for capturing allegations and 

service-identified incidents surfacing at basic training by improving its 

ability to query the system for information on the type of allegation or 

incident and whether or not it was a substantiated case of recruiter 

wrongdoing. 

Services’ Decentralized 

Processes Do Not Allow 

Them to Account for All 

Recruiter Irregularities

Where and how an irregularity is identified will often determine where and 

how it will be resolved. The services identify an allegation or incident of 

recruiter wrongdoing in a number of ways. These include input from 

service hotlines, internal inspections, congressional inquiries, and data 

collected by DOD’s Military Entrance Processing Command. The services’ 

recruiting command headquarters typically handle allegations and serviceidentified incidents of recruiter irregularities that surface through any of 

these means during the recruiting process. At other times, allegations 

surface in the recruiting process at command levels below the service 

recruiting command headquarters, and commanders at the Army Battalion, 

Navy and Marine Corps District, and Air Force Squadron level handle 

allegations that typically surface during supervisory reviews at the 

11The Department of the Air Force is the only military department in which the recruiting 

commands for the active and reserve force are still separate commands. For the purposes of 

this report, we combined Air Force and Air Force Reserve data on irregularities but only 

refer to Air Force systems and processes for managing information on recruiter 

irregularities.
Page 16 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

recruiting stations and substations. We were unable to determine the 

extent of these allegations, however, because the service recruiting 

commands do not maintain complete data. For example, Military Entrance 

Processing Command officials, responsible for assessing an applicant’s 

moral, mental, and physical eligibility for military service, stated that they 

forward all allegations and service-identified incidents of recruiter 

irregularities that surface during the screening process at the military 

entrance processing station to the services’ recruiting commanders. 

However, officials also stated that the services’ recruiting commanders do 

not provide feedback to them regarding the disposition of these cases. In 

fact, the services’ recruiting command headquarters data did not show 

records of allegations and service-identified incidents of recruiter 

irregularities received from the Military Entrance Processing Command. 

Additionally, each service provides applicants an opportunity to disclose 

any special circumstances relating to their enlistment process, including 

allegations of recruiter wrongdoing, when they enter basic training. Army 

and Air Force officials told us that they record all allegations of recruiter 

irregularities made by applicants at basic training. Army Recruiting 

Command officials stated that liaison officers at each of the basic training 

installations forward all allegations received from applicants to the Army 

Recruiting Command Enlisted Standards Division to record in its database. 

The Air Force implemented a new database in fiscal year 2005 specifically 

to record and resolve all allegations and service-identified incidents of 

recruiter wrongdoing that surface at basic training. The Navy and Marine 

Corps, on the other hand, do not record all allegations of recruiter 

irregularities made by applicants at basic training. 

• Navy: The Navy gives applicants a final opportunity to disclose any 

irregularity that they believe occurred in their recruiting process when 

they arrive at basic training. The Recruiting Command Inspector 

General has the authority to investigate allegations or service-identified 

incidents of recruiter wrongdoing and uses its Navy Recruit Quality 

Assurance Team to conduct the final Navy recruiting quality assurance 

check before applicants begin basic training. In turn, the Assurance 

Team generates reports on allegations raised by applicants who claim 

they were misled during the recruiting process and submits its reports 

to the Navy Recruiting Command Inspector General. Navy recruiting 

command officials explained that the Inspector General investigates 

those allegations that the Assurance Team, based on the professional 

judgment and experience of its team members, recommends for further 

investigation. The Navy Recruiting Command Inspector General, 
Page 17 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

however, does not maintain data on allegations that it does not 

investigate. The Assurance Team also sends its reports to the Navy 

Recruiting District Commanders who are responsible for overseeing the 

recruiters who appear on the reports. The District Commanders use the 

Assurance Team’s reports to monitor recruiter wrongdoing. Again, 

however, the District Commanders do not provide feedback to the 

Assurance Team as to how they resolve these allegations, nor do they 

report this information to the Navy Recruiting Command Inspector 

General unless they deem the case to merit further investigation or 

judicial processing. Moreover, the Assurance Team members do not 

record allegations of wrongdoing as a recruiter irregularity in those 

cases where they can easily resolve the discrepancy by granting an 

applicant an enlistment waiver to begin basic training. Assurance Team 

officials told us that they believe that some recruiters encourage 

applicants to conceal potentially disqualifying information until they 

arrive at basic training because the recruiters perceive that it is 

relatively easy to process a waiver at basic training. In addition, these 

same officials told us that this behavior saves recruiters the burden of 

collecting supporting documentation and expedites the time it takes a 

recruiter to sign a contract with an applicant and complete the 

recruiting process.

• Marine Corps: The Marine Corps also gives applicants a final 

opportunity to disclose any irregularity that they believe occurred in 

their recruiting process prior to beginning basic training. However, the 

Marine Corps’ Eastern and Western Recruiting Region staff use different 

criteria to handle allegations of recruiter irregularities that they cannot 

corroborate. Recruiting staff at the Eastern Region basic training site in 

Parris Island, South Carolina, enter all allegations applicants make 

against recruiters, while recruiting staff at the Western Region basic 

training site in San Diego, California, only enter those allegations that a 

third party can verify. A Marine Corps Recruiting Command official told 

us that, as a result of our review, Marine Corps officials discussed 

accounting procedures for allegations of recruiter irregularities at the 

command’s national operations conference held in May 2006. The 

official further stated that the Marine Corps Recruiting Command’s goal 

is to standardize procedures to account for all allegations of recruiter 

irregularities. 
Page 18 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Although Likely 

Underestimated, Service 

Data Suggest Most 

Allegations Are Not 

Substantiated

Existing data suggest that substantiated cases of recruiter wrongdoing 

make up a small percent of all allegations and service-identified incidents, 

although, for reasons previously cited, we believe the service data likely 

underestimate the true number of recruiter irregularities. Substantiated 

cases of recruiter irregularities are those cases in which the services 

determined a recruiter violated recruiting policies or procedures based on 

a review of the facts of the case. (A more detailed discussion of the 

procedures that are in place to address substantiated cases of recruiter 

irregularity are discussed later in this report.) While the services cannot 

assure that they have a complete accounting of recruiter irregularities, the 

data that they reported to us are instructive in that they show the number 

of allegations, substantiated cases, and criminal violations increased 

overall from fiscal year 2004 to fiscal year 2005. At the same time, the 

number of accessions into the military decreased from just under 250,000 

in fiscal year 2004 to about 215,000 in fiscal year 2005. 

Table 2 shows that, DOD-wide, the services substantiated about 10 percent 

of all allegations and service-identified incidents of recruiter irregularities. 

The services categorized cases as substantiated when the preponderance 

of the evidence supported the allegation of wrongdoing against a recruiter. 

Similarly, the services categorized cases as unsubstantiated when the 

preponderance of the evidence did not support the allegation against a 

recruiter. 
Page 19 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Table 2: Recruiter Irregularities by Service for Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005 That Are Unsubstantiated, Substantiated, or Othera

Source: GAO analysis based on information provided by the services.

a

Percents may not add to 100 due to rounding.

b

Data include allegations and service-identified incidents of recruiter irregularities for both the active 

and reserve components. For the purpose of this report, we combined the Air Force active and 

reserve data because the Air Force is the only service that has separate active and reserve recruiting 

commands and therefore maintains these data separately. 

c

Army data we categorized as other includes those irregularities that the Army has defined as 

unintentional recruiter error and cases of unresolved intentional recruiter misconduct, which were 

forwarded to either the Army Recruiting Command Inspector General for investigation or Judge 

Advocate for judicial processing. Navy data that we categorized as other are uncorroborated 

allegations recorded by the Navy’s Recruit Quality Assurance Team and not investigated. Marine 

Corps data we categorized as other are those allegations that Marine Corps officials determined not to 

merit an official investigation following a preliminary review and therefore did not report as either 

substantiated or unsubstantiated allegations. Air Force data that we categorized as other include 

those cases where the Air Force determined someone other than the applicant or the recruiter to be at 

fault.

d

Some of the increase in Air Force irregularities is at least partially a result of implementing a new 

tracking system in fiscal year 2005 that now captures allegations and service-identified incidents of 

recruiter irregularities, and other issues that surface at basic training. 

Table 3 shows the number of recruiter irregularities that were criminal 

violations of the recruiting process and addressed by the services’ Judge 

Advocate or criminal investigative service. The number of criminal 

violations in the recruiting process increased in fiscal year 2005; however, 

in both fiscal years, this number represented approximately 1 percent of all 

allegations and service-identified incidents of recruiter irregularities. The 

large increase in the number of Navy cases in fiscal year 2005 is likely a 

result of a special investigation where four cases led to nine additional 

cases of criminal wrongdoing. 

Irregularitiesb Unsubstantiated Substantiated Otherc

FY 2004 Army 1,037 682 (66%) 121 (12%) 234 (23%)

Navy 1,482 296 (20) 245 (17) 941 (63)

Marine Corps 1,840 162 (9) 28 (2) 1,650 (90)

Air Force 29 14 (48) 15 (52) 0

Total 4,388 1,154 (26%) 409 (9%) 2,825 (64%)

FY 2005 Army 913 551(60) 123 (13) 239 (26)

Navy 2,397 513 (21) 226 (9) 1,658 (69)

Marine Corps 1,877 227 (12) 32 (2) 1,582 (84)

Air Forced 1,415 127 (9) 248 (18) 1,034 (73)

Total 6,602 1,418 (21%) 629 (10%) 4,513 (68%)
Page 20 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Table 3: Cases of Recruiter Criminal Violations in Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005 by 

Service

Source: GAO analysis based on information provided by the services.

Table 4 shows that on average, the percentage of substantiated cases of 

recruiter wrongdoing compared to the number of actual accessions was 

under 1 percent in each service during the past 2 fiscal years. 

Table 4: Substantiated Irregularities as a Percentage of Actual Accessions by Service for Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005

Source: GAO analysis based on information provided by the services. Accessions data obtained from GAO, Military Personnel: DOD 

Needs Action Plan to Address Enlisted Personnel Recruitment and Retention Challenges, GAO-06-134 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 17, 

2005).

a

Data include substantiated allegations and service-identified incidents of recruiter irregularities for 

both the active and reserve components. For the purpose of this report, we combined the Air Force 

active and reserve data as the Air Force is the only service that has separate active and reserve 

recruiting commands and therefore maintains these data separately. 

b

Some of the increase in Air Force data is at least partially a result of implementing of a new tracking 

system in fiscal year 2005 that now captures allegations and service-identified incidents of recruiter 

irregularities, and other issues that surface at basic training.

Table 5 shows that when we compared the number of substantiated cases 

of recruiter wrongdoing to the number of frontline recruiters, 4.7 percent of 

recruiters would have had a substantiated case against them in fiscal year 

2005 if each recruiter who committed an irregularity had committed only 

one. (However, this is not to say that 4.7 percent of frontline recruiters 

Service FY 2004 FY 2005

Army 19 38

Navy 1 13

Marine Corps 0 2

Air Force 11 12

Total 33 68

Service

FY 2004 FY 2005

Accessions

Substantiated 

irregularitiesa Accessions

Substantiated 

irregularitiesa

Army 110,296 121 (0.11%) 97,232 123 (0.13%)

Navy 51,117 245 (0.48) 47,491 226 (0.48)

Marine Corps 38,866 28 (0.07) 41,311 32 (0.08)

Air Forceb 43,265 15 (0.03) 29,164 248 (0.85)

Total 243,544 409 (0.17%) 215,198 629 (0.29%)
Page 21 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

committed an irregularity, given that some recruiters may have committed 

more than one irregularity). 

Table 5: Irregularities as a Percentage of Recruiters by Service for Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005

Source: GAO analysis based on information provided by the services. Data on recruiters obtained from DOD.

a

Data include allegations and service-identified incidents of recruiter irregularities for both the active 

and reserve components. For the purpose of this report, we combined the Air Force active and reserve 

data as the Air Force is the only service that has separate active and reserve recruiting commands and 

therefore maintains these data separately.

b

Some of the increase in Air Force irregularities is at least partially a result of implementing a new 

tracking system in fiscal year 2005 that now captures allegations and service-identified incidents of 

recruiter irregularities, and other issues that surface at basic training. 

Without an oversight framework to provide complete and reliable data, 

DOD and the services are not in a position to gauge the extent of recruiter 

irregularities or when corrective action is needed, nor is the department in 

a sound position to give Congress and the general public assurance that 

recruiter irregularities are being addressed. 

Many Factors May 

Affect the Recruiting 

Environment 

A number of factors within the current recruiting environment may 

contribute to recruiting irregularities. Such factors include the economy, 

ongoing hostilities in Iraq, and fewer applicants who can meet military 

entrance standards. These factors, coupled with the typical difficulties of 

the job and pressure to meet monthly recruiting goals, challenge the 

recruiter and can lead to recruiter irregularities in the recruiting process. 

Data show that as the end of the monthly recruiting cycle draws near, the 

number of recruiter irregularities may increase. 

Service

FY 2004 FY 2005

Recruiters

Substantiated 

irregularitiesa Recruiters

Substantiated 

irregularitiesa

Army 5,109 121 (2.4%) 5,953 123 (2.1%) 

Navy 4,617 245 (5.3) 3,365 226 (6.7) 

Marine Corps 2,650 28 (1.1) 2,650 32 (1.2) 

Air Forceb 1,460 15 (1.0) 1,453 248 (17.1) 

Total 13,836 409 (3.0%) 13,421 629 (4.7%) 
Page 22 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Many Factors Contribute to 

a Challenging Recruiting 

Environment

Among a number of factors that contribute to a challenging recruiting 

environment are the current economic situation and the ongoing hostilities 

in Iraq. Service recruiting officials told us that the state of the economy, 

specifically the low unemployment rate, has had the single largest effect 

recently on meeting recruiting goals. These officials stated DOD must 

compete harder for qualified talent to join the military when the economy is 

strong. According to U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics 

data, the national unemployment rate fell each year between 2003 (when it 

was at 6 percent) and 2005 (when it was 5.1 percent). In fiscal year 2005, 

three of the eight active and reserve components we reviewed—the Army, 

Army Reserve, and Navy Reserve—failed to meet their recruiting goals. 

Recruiters also believe that the ongoing hostilities in Iraq have made their 

job harder. Results of a DOD internal survey show that almost threequarters of active duty recruiters agreed with the statement that current 

military operations made it hard for them to achieve recruiting goals and 

missions.12 Recruiters we interviewed expressed the same opinion. DOD 

has found that the public’s perceptions about military enlistment have 

changed because youth and their parents believe that deployment to a 

hostile environment is very likely for servicemembers with some types of 

military specialties.13 Officials further stated that adults who influence a 

prospective applicant’s decision about whether to join the military are 

increasingly fearful of the possibility of death or serious injury to the 

applicant.

Recruiters also must overcome specific factors that routinely make their 

job hard. Recruiters told us that their work hours were dictated by the 

schedules of prospective high school applicants, which meant working 

most evenings and weekends. Almost three-quarters of active duty 

recruiters who responded to DOD’s survey stated that they worked more 

than 60 hours a week on recruiting or recruiting-related duties. Other 

12The DOD 2005 Recruiter Quality of Life Survey is the seventh survey conducted since 1989, 

and the first survey administered in the past 5 years, dealing with recruiters’ opinions about 

their job. The response rate for the DOD internal survey was 46 percent. Because DOD did 

not conduct a nonresponse bias analysis, we cannot determine whether estimates from this 

survey may be affected by nonresponse bias. Such bias might arise if nonrespondents’ 

answers to survey items would have been systematically different from those of 

respondents. 

13GAO, Military Personnel: Reporting Additional Servicemember Democraphics Could 

Enhance Congressional Oversight, GAO-05-952 (Washington, D.C.: September 2005).
Page 23 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

factors that affect the recruiting environment include a recruiter’s location 

and access to eligible applicants. For example, service officials stated that 

it was easier to recruit in or near locations with a military presence. 

Recruiters also have difficulty finding eligible applicants. DOD researchers 

have estimated that over half of U.S. youth aged 16 to 21 are ineligible to 

join the military because they cannot meet DOD or service entry 

standards.14 DOD officials stated that the inability to meet medical and 

physical requirements accounts for much of the reason youth are ineligible 

for military service. Additionally, many youth are ineligible because they 

cannot meet service standards for education, as indicated by DOD’s 

preference for recruits with a high school diploma; mental aptitude, as 

indicated by receipt of an acceptable score on the armed forces vocational 

aptitude test; and moral character, as indicated by few or no criminal 

convictions or antisocial behavior. All of these factors contribute to a 

difficult recruiting environment that is challenging for recruiters to 

succeed. 

Pressure to meet monthly goals contributes to recruiter dissatisfaction. 

Over 50 percent of active duty military recruiters responding to the 2005 

internal DOD survey stated that they were dissatisfied with their jobs. 

Approximately two-thirds of Army recruiters reported that they were 

dissatisfied with recruiting, while over a third of Air Force recruiters stated 

they were dissatisfied. The Navy and Marine Corps rates of recruiter 

dissatisfaction fell within these extremes, with just under half of Navy and 

Marine Corps recruiters reporting that they were dissatisfied with their 

jobs. When asked in this same survey if they would select another 

assignment if they had the freedom to do so, over three-quarters of active 

duty DOD recruiters said they would not remain in recruiting. 

On the one hand, the services expect recruiters to recruit fully qualified 

personnel; while on the other hand, the services primarily evaluate 

recruiters’ performance on the number of contracts they write, which 

corresponds to the number of applicants who enter the delayed entry 

program each month. In 2005, over two-thirds of those active duty 

recruiters responding to the internal DOD survey believed that their 

success in making their monthly quota for enlistment contracts had a 

make-or-break effect on their military career. Over 80 percent of Marine 

Corps recruiters held that opinion, as did almost two-thirds of Army and 

14National Research Council, Attitudes, Aptitudes, and Aspirations of American Youth; 

DOD, Overview Report June 2003 Youth Poll 5 (December 2003), p. 71.
Page 24 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

over half of Air Force recruiters. Navy officials stated that individual 

recruiters are not tasked with a monthly goal; rather, the goal belongs to 

the recruiting station as a whole. Still, approximately two-thirds of Navy 

recruiters responding to DOD’s survey indicated they felt their careers 

were affected by their success in making their individual recruiting goal. 

The recruiters who we interviewed also believed their careers were 

affected by how successful they were in achieving monthly recruiting 

goals. 

Recruiter Evaluations Are 

Linked to Monthly 

Recruiting Results

Recruiters, like all servicemembers, receive performance evaluations at 

least once a year. Our review of service performance evaluations and 

conversations with the services’ recruiting command officials show that 

Army, Navy, and Air Force recruiter evaluations are not directly linked to 

an applicant successfully completing his or her service’s basic training 

course. Instead, we found that the Army, Navy, and Air Force generally 

evaluate recruiters on their ability to achieve their monthly goal to write 

contracts to bring applicants into the delayed entry program. The Army’s 

civilian contractor recruiters, for example, receive approximately 75 

percent of their monetary compensation for recruiting an applicant when 

that applicant enters the delayed entry program and the remaining 25 

percent of their compensation when the applicant begins basic training. 

The Army’s contract, therefore, does not tie compensation to the 

applicant’s successful completion of basic training and joining the Army. 

Even though Navy officials told us that recruiters do not have individual 

goals because the monthly mission is assigned to the recruiting station, 

Navy performance metrics include data on the number of contracts 

written. However, the Navy does not hold recruiters directly accountable 

for attrition rates from either the delayed entry program or basic training. 

Marine Corps recruiters, unlike recruiters in the other services, are held 

accountable when an applicant does not complete basic training and 

remain responsible for recruiting an additional applicant to replace the 

former basic trainee. Marine Corps recruiter evaluation performance 

standards measure both the number of contracts written each month as 

well as attrition rates of applicants from the delayed entry program and 

basic training. Marine Corps Recruiting Command officials stated that they 

believe their practice of holding recruiters accountable for attrition rates 

helps to limit irregularities because recruiters are likely to perform more 

rigorous prescreening of applicants to ensure that a recruit is likely to 

complete Marine Corps basic training. In fact, Military Entrance Processing 

Command data show that Marine Corps recruiters have been the most 
Page 25 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

consistently successful of all service recruiters at prescreening and 

processing applicants through their initial physical assessments, 

subsequently maintaining applicants’ physical eligibility while in the 

delayed entry program, and finally ensuring that applicants pass the final 

physical assessment and enter basic training. Table 6 shows the low 

medical disqualification rate of the Marine Corps in comparison with the 

other services.

Table 6: Disqualifications by Service from Fiscal Year 2003 through Fiscal Year 2005

Source: GAO analysis of Military Entrance Processing Command data.

Note: Applicants who were disqualified but were able to obtain a medical waiver are not included in the 

percent of disqualifications.

In addition to performance evaluations, the services provide awards to 

recruiters that are generally based on the number of contracts that a 

recruiter writes, rather than on the number of applicants that graduate 

from basic training and join the military. We reported in 1998 that only the 

Marine Corps and the Navy used recruits’ basic training graduation rates as 

key criteria when evaluating recruiters for awards.15 Recruiters in some 

services and other service recruiting command officials stated their belief 

that recruiters who write large numbers of contracts over and above their 

monthly quota are almost always rewarded. Such rewards can include 

medals and trophies for recruiter of the month, quarter, or year; 

preferential duty stations for their next assignment; incentives such as paid 

vacations; and meritorious promotion to the next rank. 

When unqualified applicants are recruited or when applicants who lack 

eligibility documentation are processed through the military entrance 

processing station in the effort to satisfy end-of-month recruiting cycle 

goals, wasted taxpayer dollars result. For example, the Army spends 

Percentage of total Military Entrance Processing Station medical disqualifications 

2003 2004 2005

Army 6.3 4.6 4.7

Navy 5.0 3.3 3.7

Marine Corps 3.9 2.6 2.4

Air Force 4.9 3.6 4.1

15GAO/NSIAD-98-58.
Page 26 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

approximately $17,000 to recruit and process one applicant, and as much as 

$57,500 to recruit and train that applicant through basic training.

We continue to believe our 1997 and 1998 recommendations to the 

Secretary of Defense have merit. Specifically, we recommended that the 

Secretary of Defense require all the services to review and revise their 

recruiter performance evaluation and award systems to strengthen 

incentives for recruiters to thoroughly prescreen applicants and to more 

closely link recruiting quotas to applicants’ successful completion of basic 

training. The department concurred with our recommendations in order to 

enhance recruiter success and help recruiters focus on DOD’s strategic 

retention goal, and it indicated that the Secretary of Defense would instruct 

the services to link recruiter awards more closely to recruits’ successful 

completion of basic training. Our review shows that the Army, Navy, and 

Air Force have not implemented this recommendation.

Recruiter Irregularities May 

Increase as the Deadline to 

Meet Monthly Goals Nears

DOD Military Entrance Processing Command officials told us that they 

believe data from the Chicago military entrance processing station for the 

first 6 months of fiscal year 2006 indicate that it may be possible to 

anticipate when irregularities may occur. While service data show that the 

numbers of irregularities that occur in the recruiting process are relatively 

small when compared with the total number of applicants that access into 

the military, the Chicago station data suggest that recruiter irregularities 

increase as the end of the monthly recruiting cycle nears and recruiting 

goals are tallied. The end-of-month recruiting cycle for the Army occurs 

midmonth and data from DOD’s Chicago processing station show that 

irregularities peaked at the midmonth point. Figure 3 illustrates the 

increase in recruiter irregularities that occurred at the Chicago station at 

the end of the Army’s monthly recruiting cycle. We present Army data 

because the Chicago station processes more applicants for the Army than it 

does for the other services. However, Chicago station data show similar 

results for the Navy, Marines, and Air Force.
Page 27 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Figure 3: Recruiter Irregularities Occurring at the End of the Army Monthly Recruiting Cycles 

When we asked U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command officials for 

data from the other stations, they said that the other stations did not 

maintain these data and that this data collection effort was the initiative of 

the Chicago station commander. We believe these data can be instructive 

and inform recruiting command officials whether monthly goals have an 

adverse affect on recruiter behaviors, and if so, whether actions to address 

increases in irregularities near the end of the monthly recruiting cycle may 

be necessary. 

Number of daily discrepencies 

Source: GAO analysis of U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command data. 

Number of Army recruiter irregularities

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

3/12/2006

1/12/2006

2/12/2006

10/14/2005

11/11/2005

12/16/2005

End of monthly recruiting cycle
Page 28 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Services Have 

Standard Procedures in 

Place for 

Administering Military 

Justice to Address 

Recruiter Irregularities

The services have standard procedures in place, provided in the Uniform 

Code of Military Justice and service regulations, to investigate allegations 

and service-identified incidents of recruiter irregularities and to prosecute 

and discipline recruiters found guilty of violating recruiting policies and 

procedures. Each service recruiting command has a designated 

investigative authority to handle allegations of irregularities, and the 

services’ respective Judge Advocates have primary responsibility for 

adjudicating criminal violations of the recruitment process. Moreover, each 

service has mechanisms by which to update its recruiter training as a result 

of information on recruiter irregularities. 

As previously discussed, the services identify allegations and serviceidentified incidents of recruiter wrongdoing in a number of ways. 

Allegations made or discovered at the Army Battalion, Navy and Marine 

Corps District, and Air Force Squadron command level are generally 

resolved by that commander using administrative actions and nonjudicial 

punishment under authority granted by the Uniformed Code of Military 

Justice. The commander forwards allegations and service-identified 

incidents of recruiter irregularities arising at that level that he or she deems 

sufficiently egregious to require further investigation, or as service 

regulations require, to the service recruiting command or to the Judge 

Advocate for judicial processing of possible criminal violations in the 

recruitment process.

Commanders in the service recruiting commands, like all commanders 

throughout the military, exercise discretion in deciding whether a 

servicemember should be charged with an offense, just as prosecutors do 

in the civilian justice system. Army Battalion, Navy and Marine Corps 

District, and Air Force Squadron commanders initiate a preliminary inquiry 

into allegations of wrongdoing against recruiters after receiving a report of 

a possible recruiter irregularity.16 When the preliminary inquiry is complete, 

the commander must make a decision on how to resolve the case. The 

commander can decide that no action is warranted or take administrative 

action, such as a reprimand or counseling. The commander can also decide 

to pursue nonjudicial punishment under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of 

16Commanders conduct preliminary inquiries under the Rules for Courts-Martial (R.C.M.) 

found in the Manual for Courts-Martial. These informal inquiries are sometimes referred to 

as R.C.M. 303 Inquiries.
Page 29 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Military Justice,17 or refer the case to trial and decide what charges will be 

brought against the recruiter. 

Limitations in data we previously discussed prevent a thorough review of 

how services discipline recruiters found guilty of violating recruiting 

policies and procedures. In addition, we found that in some cases, the 

services did not document the disciplinary action a commander took 

against a recruiter. Even though service data are not complete, data the 

Army provided allow us to illustrate the range of disciplinary actions 

commanders may take to resolve cases of recruiter irregularities. These 

actions range from counseling a recruiter for an irregularity up to discharge 

from the Army. For example, in fiscal year 2005, Army data show that 

commanders imposed disciplinary actions ranging from a verbal reprimand 

to court martial for recruiters who concealed an applicant’s medical 

information. Service recruiting officials stated that the range of possible 

disciplinary actions a commander may impose is mitigated by the 

circumstances of each case, including the recruiter’s overall service record, 

duty performance, and number of irregularities the recruiter may have 

previously committed. Table 7 summarizes disciplinary actions taken 

against Army recruiters in the past 2 fiscal years for specific kinds of 

irregularities. 

17Article 15, Uniform Code of Military Justice, is intended to handle minor offenses. A minor 

offense is one for which the maximum sentence at a court-martial would not include a 

dishonorable discharge or confinement in excess of 1 year.
Page 30 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Table 7: All Army Allegations and Service-identified Incidents of Recruiter Irregularities by Disciplinary Action for Fiscal Years 

2004 and 2005

Total

Not qualified for

enlistment Coercion

Concealed

medical

information

Concealed

police record

Concealed

prior service

2004

Other than honorable 

discharge 6 0 0 0 0 0

General discharge 7 0 0 0 0 0

Civilian relief 0 0 0 0 0 0

Courts martial 0 0 0 0 0 0

Relief for cause noncommissioned officer 23 3 1 2 5 0

Article 15 13 0 0 2 4 0

Letter of admonishment 4 1 0 1 1 0

Letter of reprimand 83 3 5 15 14 1

Civilian reprimand 0 0 0 0 0 0

Counseled/letter of concern 53 14 3 6 11 0

Verbal reprimand/ 

counseling 108 34 4 7 16 0

Action pending 9 10 1 30

No action taken 731 50 19 335 109 3

Open case 0 0 0 0 0 0

Total 1037 106 32 369 163 4

2005

Other than honorable 

discharge 0 0 0 0 0 0

General discharge 2 0 0 0 0 0

Civilian relief 2 0 0 2 0 0

Courts martial 4 0 0 1 0 0

Relief for cause noncommissioned officer 22 2 0 1 3 1

Article 15 21 0 0 0 0 0

Letter of admonishment 3 1 0 2 0 0

Letter of reprimand 87 8 3 16 10 0

Civilian reprimand 2 0 0 1 0 0

Counseled/letter of concern 30 2 0 5 3 0

Verbal reprimand/ 

counseling 108 15 2 21 14 5
Page 31 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Concealment of

dependents False promise

Falsification of

documents Illegal testing Other

Parental

consent Misconduct

0 0 0 00 0 6

0 0 0 00 0 7

0 0 0 00 0 0

0 0 0 00 0 0

1 0 6 41 0 0

0 0 6 00 0 1

0 0 1 00 0 0

3 3 21 6 8 1 3

0 0 0 00 0 0

3 3 4 16 2 0

1 9 5 2 27 2 1

1 1 1 00 0 1

39 62 46 10 55 3 0

0 0 0 00 0 0

48 78 90 23 97 8 19

0 0 0 00 0 0

0 0 0 00 0 2

0 0 0 00 0 0

0 1 1 00 0 1

1 0 6 71 0 0

0 0 7 1 0 0 13

0 0 0 00 0 0

1 1 21 5 2 1 18

0 0 1 00 0 0

5 3 3 25 1 1

5 14 6 1 25 0 0
Page 32 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Action pending 8 1 0 2 2 0

No action taken 603 55 18 248 82 4

Open case 21 1 0 3 4 0

Total 913 85 23 302 118 10

(Continued From Previous Page)

Total

Not qualified for

enlistment Coercion

Concealed

medical

information

Concealed

police record

Concealed

prior service
Page 33 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Source: GAO analysis of data provided by the Army. 

Note: Most of the cases in the disciplinary category identified as “No action taken” were for allegations 

that were unsubstantiated and service-identified incidents deemed as recruiter error in which the Army 

determined no wrongdoing occurred.

0 1 1 10 0 0

28 54 58 27 24 2 3

0 0 6 34 0 0

41 74 110 47 61 4 38

Concealment of

dependents False promise

Falsification of

documents Illegal testing Other

Parental

consent Misconduct
Page 34 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Services Use 

Information on 

Recruiter Irregularities 

to Update Their 

Training 

All of the services have mechanisms for updating their recruiter training as 

a result of information on recruiter irregularities. These mechanisms 

include internal inspection programs and routine recruiter discipline 

reports. The services also react to reassure public confidence in the 

recruiting process when specific incidents or reports of recruiter 

irregularities become widely known. Each service recruiting command 

assesses and evaluates how recruiting policies and procedures are being 

followed, the results of which are focused on training at the Army 

Battalion, Navy and Marine Corps District, and Air Force Squadron 

command level. For example, the Navy Recruiting Command’s National 

Inspection Team conducts unannounced inspections at the Navy recruiting 

districts and forwards the results of the inspection to the Navy Recruiting 

Command headquarters. The Navy Recruiting Command’s National 

Training Team follows up by conducting refresher training at the recruiting 

station locations or in the subject areas where the National Training Team 

identified discrepancies. The Marine Corps’ National Training Team also 

conducts periodic inspections and training based on the results of their 

inspections. Additionally, the Marine Corps National Training Team 

provides input and guidance to the Marine Corps recruiter school course 

curriculum. The Air Force Recruiting Command Judge Advocate 

distributes quarterly recruiter discipline reports to heighten awareness of 

wrongdoing and encourage proper recruiter behavior. In addition, these 

reports are used to show examples of wrongdoing during new recruiter 

training. The Army Recruiting Command conducted commandwide 

refresher training on May 20, 2005, in response to a series of press reports 

of recruiters using inappropriate tactics in their attempts to enlist new 

servicemembers. The Army stated that the training goal was to reinforce 

that recruiting operations must be conducted within the rules and 

regulations and in accordance with Army values.18

Conclusions Military recruiters represent the first point of contact between potential 

servicemembers and those who influence them—their parents, coaches, 

teachers, and other family members. Consequently, a recruiter’s actions can 

be far reaching. Although existing data suggest that the overwhelming 

number of recruiters are not committing irregularities and irregularities are 

not widespread, even one incident of recruiter wrongdoing can erode 

18The Army values are loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal 

courage.
Page 35 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

public confidence in DOD’s recruiting process. Existing data show, in fact, 

that allegations and service-identified incidents of recruiter wrongdoing 

increased between fiscal years 2004 and 2005. DOD, however, is not in a 

position to answer questions about these allegations and service-identified 

incidents because it does not know the true extent to which the services 

are tracking recruiter irregularities or addressing them. Moreover, DOD is 

unable to compile a comprehensive and consolidated report because the 

services do not use consistent terminology regarding recruiter 

irregularities. Individual service systems are not integrated, processes are 

decentralized, and many allegations are undocumented. Although DOD 

officials can point to external factors, such as a strong economy and 

current military operations in Iraq as recruiting challenges, data suggest 

that internal requirements to meet monthly recruiting goals may also 

contribute to recruiter irregularities. Having readily available, complete, 

and consistent data from the services would place DOD in a better position 

to know the nature and extent of recruiter irregularities and identify 

opportunities when corrective action is needed.

Recommendations for 

Executive Action

To improve DOD’s visibility over recruiter irregularities, we recommend 

that the Secretary of Defense take the following action:

• Direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to 

establish an oversight framework to assess recruiter irregularities and 

provide overall guidance to the services. 

To assist in developing its oversight framework, we recommend that the 

Secretary of Defense direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel 

and Readiness to take the following three actions:

• Establish criteria and common definitions across the services for 

maintaining data on allegations of recruiter irregularities.

• Establish a reporting requirement across the services to help ensure a 

full accounting of all allegations and service-identified incidents of 

recruiter irregularities. 

• Direct the services to develop internal systems and processes that better 

capture and integrate data on allegations and service-identified 

incidents of recruiter irregularities.
Page 36 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

To assist DOD in developing a complete accounting of recruiter 

irregularities, we further recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct 

the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to take the 

following action:

• Direct the commander of DOD’s Military Entrance Processing 

Command to track and report allegations and service-identified 

incidents of recruiter irregularities to the Office of the Under Secretary 

of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. Such analysis would include 

irregularities by service and the time during the monthly recruiting cycle 

when the irregularities occur. 

Agency Comments and 

Our Evaluation

In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD concurred with three of 

our recommendations that address the need for an effective oversight 

management framework to improve DOD's visibility over recruiter 

irregularities. While DOD partially concurred with our recommendation to 

establish a reporting requirement across the services and did not concur 

with our recommendation for the Military Entrance Processing Command 

to provide OSD with data on recruiter irregularities, the department did not 

disagree with the substance of these recommendations. Rather, DOD 

indicated that it would implement these recommendations if it determined 

such requirements were necessary. DOD's comments are included in this 

report as appendix II.

DOD concurred with our recommendations to establish an oversight 

framework to assess recruiter irregularities and provide overall guidance to 

the services; to establish criteria and common definitions across the 

services for maintaining data on recruiter irregularities; and for the 

services to develop internal systems and processes that better capture and 

integrate data on recruiter irregularities. 

DOD partially concurred with our recommendation to establish a reporting 

requirement across the services to help ensure a full accounting of 

recruiter irregularities, but agreed that some type of reporting requirement 

be established. The department believes that implementing this 

recommendation may be premature until it has established an over-arching 

management framework to provide oversight that uses like terms for 

recruiter irregularities, and that the requirement and frequency should be 

left to the judgment of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Personnel and Readiness. DOD stated its intent to establish an initial 

reporting requirement to ensure the processes it develops are functioning 
Page 37 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

as planned and to use this time period to assess the severity of recruiter 

irregularities issues. DOD further stated that regardless of whether or not 

it establishes a fixed reporting requirement, the services will be required to 

maintain data on recruiter irregularities in a format that would facilitate 

timely and accurate reports upon request. We do not believe it would be 

premature to establish a reporting requirement at this time. As we stated in 

our report, data that the services reported to us show that the number of 

allegations, substantiated cases, and criminal violations all increased from 

fiscal year 2004 to fiscal year 2005. Without a reporting requirement, we 

believe it would be difficult for OUSD to identify trends in recruiter 

irregularities and determine if corrective action is needed. Accordingly, we 

continue to believe that a reporting requirement for the services would help 

the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness 

to carry out its responsibilities to review DOD's recruitment program to 

ensure adherence to approved policies and standards. 

The department did not concur with our recommendation for DOD's 

Military Entrance Processing Command to track and report allegations and 

incidents of recruiter irregularities to OUSD because it believed this 

reporting would duplicate service reporting, and added that we had stated 

that recruiter irregularities are not widespread. However, DOD 

acknowledged, as our report points out, that even one incident of recruiter 

wrongdoing can erode public confidence in the recruiting process and 

agreed to consider this recommendation at a later date if it determines that 

recruiter irregularities are a significant problem and further analyses are 

required. While we did conclude from the data services provided to us that 

recruiter wrongdoing did not appear to be widespread, we also stated our 

belief that service data likely underestimate the true number of recruiter 

irregularities, and further concluded that DOD is not in a position to 

answer questions about these allegations and service-identified incidents 

because it does not know the full extent to which the services are tracking 

recruiter irregularities or addressing them. We believe, therefore, that the 

significance of recruiter irregularities is not fully understood, and that 

addressing this recommendation should not be delayed. As we reported, 

Military Entrance Processing Command officials told us that they forward 

all allegations and service-identified incidents of recruiter irregularities 

that surface during the screening process at the military entrance 

processing stations to the services' recruiting commands. We found, 

however, that the services’ recruiting command headquarters data do not 

show records of allegations and service-identified incidents of recruiter 

irregularities received from the Military Entrance Processing Command. 

Data currently captured by the Military Entrance Processing Command 
Page 38 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

would be instructive, particularly because these data show an increase in 

irregularities as Army recruiters approach the end of their monthly 

recruiting cycle, and we believe that these data would further inform DOD 

about the effectiveness of the oversight management framework it has 

agreed to establish. 

As arranged with your office, unless you publically announce its contents 

earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days from the 

date of this report. At that time, we will send copies of this report to 

interested congressional members; the Secretaries of Defense, the Army, 

the Navy, and the Air Force; and the Commandant of the Marine Corps. We 

will also make copies available to others upon request. In addition, the 

report will be available at no charge on GAO’s Web site at 

http://www.gao.gov.

Should you or your staff have any questions regarding this report, please 

contact me at (202) 512-5559 or stewartd@gao.gov. Contact points for our 

Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the 

last page of this report. GAO staff members who made key contributions to 

this report are listed in appendix III.

Derek B. Stewart, Director

Defense Capabilities and Management
Page 39 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Appendix I

Scope and Methodology AAppenednxidexiIs

To conduct our work, we examined Department of Defense (DOD) and 

military services’ policies, regulations, orders, and instructions that govern 

the recruitment of military servicemembers and the investigation and 

resolution of allegations and service-identified incidents of recruiter 

wrongdoing. We also reviewed recruiting-related reports issued by GAO, 

DOD, and the services. We analyzed data on allegations and serviceidentified incidents of recruiter irregularities from the active and reserve 

components of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force databases, 

reports, and individual paper files. Additionally, we interviewed individuals 

at several DOD and service offices and recruiters in each service, and 

visited a number of recruiting and recruiting-related commands.1

 In the 

course of our work, we contacted and visited the organizations and offices 

listed in table 8.2

Table 8: Organizations and Offices Contacted During Our Review

1

Discussions with officials at the National Guard Bureau revealed that the National Guard 

Bureau does not maintain data on allegations and service-identified incidents of recruiter 

irregularities. Further, if the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard collect and 

maintain these data, they would do so at 54 state, District of Columbia, and territory Guard 

offices. As a result, our study is limited to a discussion of the data on allegations of recruiter 

irregularities from the active and reserve components of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and 

Marine Corps. 

2

The organizations and offices listed as those contacted during our review are limited to 

those that provided information that had an impact on our findings.

Name of organization or office Location

Air Force Recruiting Service Randolph Air Force Base, Tex.

Air Force Recruiting School Lackland Air Force Base, Tex.

Air Force Reserve Command Recruiting Service Robins Air Force Base, Ga.

Air Force Recruiting Office San Antonio, Tex.

Air Force Recruiting Office Universal City, Tex.

Army Recruiting Command Fort Knox, Ky.

Army Recruiting and Retention School Fort Jackson, S.C.

Army Recruiting Station Elizabethtown, Ky.

Marine Corps Recruiting Command Quantico, Va.

Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, Calif.

Marine Corps District Command San Diego, Calif.
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 40 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Source: GAO.

To assess the extent to which DOD and the services have visibility over 

recruiter irregularities, we examined DOD and service policies, 

procedures, regulations, and instructions related to recruiting. In addition, 

we interviewed officials in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Personnel and Readiness and the services’ recruiting officials and 

Inspectors General to obtain an understanding of various aspects of the 

data DOD and the services collect on allegations and service-identified 

incidents of recruiting irregularities. We obtained data on recruiter 

irregularities from service recruiting commands’ Inspectors General or 

other designated recruiting command offices, the Headquarters Air Force 

Recruiting Service Basic Training Inspector General Liaison, the Naval 

Criminal Investigative Service, and the recruiting commands’ Staff Judge 

Advocates. Specifically, within each service, we analyzed fiscal years 2004 

and 2005 data.

• For the Army, we obtained data on allegations and service-identified 

incidents of recruiter irregularities from its Recruiting Improprieties All 

Years database. We also obtained data on recruiting irregularities that 

Marine Corps Recruiting Station San Diego, Calif.

Marine Corps Recruiting Sub-Station San Diego, Calif.

Marine Corps Recruit Liaison Office San Diego, Calif.

Marine Corps Recruiting School San Diego, Calif.

Military Entrance Processing Command North Chicago, Ill.

Military Entrance Processing Command Inspector General North Chicago, Ill.

Military Entrance Processing Stations Des Plaines, Ill.

San Diego, Calif.

Navy Recruiting Command Millington, Tenn.

Navy Recruiting Command Inspector General Millington, Tenn.

Navy Orientation and Recruiting Unit Pensacola, Fla.

Naval Inspector General Washington Navy Yard, D.C. 

Navy Bureau of Personnel Inspector General Millington, Tenn.

Naval Criminal Investigative Service Washington Navy Yard, D.C.

Navy Judge Advocate General Washington Navy Yard, D.C.

Navy Recruit Quality Assurance Team Great Lakes, Ill.

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and 

Readiness

Washington, D.C.

Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, 

Manpower and Personnel 

Washington, D.C.

(Continued From Previous Page)

Name of organization or office Location
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 41 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

were processed as criminal violations from the Army Recruiting 

Command Judge Advocate’s paper files. 

• For the Navy, we obtained data on allegations and service-identified 

incidents of recruiter irregularities from the Naval Inspector General’s 

Case Management Information System, the Navy Bureau of Personnel 

Inspector General, the Navy Recruiting Command Inspector General’s 

paper files, and the Navy Recruiting Quality Assurance Team. We also 

obtained data on Navy recruiter criminal violations from the Navy’s 

Criminal Investigative Service. 

• For the Marine Corps, we obtained data on allegations and serviceidentified incidents of recruiter irregularities from its Marine Corps 

Recruiting Information Support System. We also obtained data on 

recruiter criminal violations from the Navy’s Criminal Investigative 

Service data system.

• For the Air Force, we obtained data on allegations and service-identified 

incidents of recruiter irregularities from its Automated Case Tracking 

System and Trainee Tracking System, and data on criminal violations 

from its Automated Military Justice Administrative Management 

System. We also obtained data from the Air Force Reserve Command 

Recruiting Service’s Headquarters Queries database. 

To identify the factors within the current recruiting environment that may 

contribute to recruiting irregularities, we reviewed prior GAO work, 

Congressional Research Service reports addressing the recruiting 

environment, and the 2005 DOD Recruiter Quality of Life Survey Topline 

Report. We reviewed the sampling and estimation documentation for this 

survey and determined that it conforms to commonly accepted statistical 

methods for probability samples; the response rate for the DOD internal 

survey was 46 percent. Because DOD did not conduct a nonresponse bias 

analysis, we cannot determine whether estimates from this survey may be 

affected by nonresponse bias. Such bias might arise if nonrespondents’ 

answers to survey items would have been systematically different from 

those of respondents. We reviewed service policies and processes 

governing recruiter selection, training, and performance evaluation, and 

interviewed key service officials about the types of challenges that exist in 

the recruiting environment and the methods used to evaluate recruiter 

performance. Additionally, we gathered and analyzed statistical 

information from the Department of Labor and reviewed Military Entrance 

Processing Command data on the frequency and occurrence of applicant 
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 42 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

disqualifications by service and reports on recruiter irregularities. Finally, 

we interviewed officials at the U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command 

and two military entrance processing stations regarding recruiter 

irregularities.

To identify what procedures DOD and the services have in place to address 

individuals involved in recruiting irregularities, we examined service case 

data and spoke with service recruiting command officials to determine how 

services imposed disciplinary action and what, if any, other actions they 

took to mitigate wrongdoing in the recruiting process. For each service, we 

obtained data on disciplinary actions imposed for cases of recruiter 

irregularities but specifically examined and analyzed Army data as they 

appeared to be the most comprehensive. We present these data for fiscal 

years 2004 and 2005. We also reviewed service regulations and the Uniform 

Code of Military Justice to understand departmentwide standards and the 

authorities that are granted to commanders to administer military justice. 

Finally, we reviewed service training materials and spoke with service 

recruiting command officials to identify other ways services use 

information on recruiter wrongdoing to try to mitigate errors and 

irregularities in the recruiting process.

To assess the reliability of the services’ data on allegations and serviceidentified incidents of recruiter irregularities, we interviewed officials 

about the processes used to capture data on recruiter irregularities, the 

controls over those processes, and the data systems used; and we reviewed 

documentation related to those systems. Based on responses to our 

questions, follow-up discussions, and the documentation we reviewed, we 

found limitations in many service data systems, including reliance on paper 

files; databases that cannot be fully queried, if at all; and in some cases, 

lack of edit checks and data quality reviews. Although we identified 

weaknesses in the available data, we determined, for the purposes of this 

report, that the data were reliable for providing limited information on 

recruiter irregularities.
Page 43 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Appendix II

Comments from the Department of Defense ApendxiI
Appendix II

Comments from the Department of Defense

Page 44 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting
Appendix II

Comments from the Department of Defense

Page 45 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Now on p. 35.

Now on p. 35.
Appendix II

Comments from the Department of Defense

Page 46 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Now on p. 35.

Now on p. 35.

Now on p. 36.
Appendix II

Comments from the Department of Defense

Page 47 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting
Page 48 GAO-06-846 Military Recruiting

Appendix III

GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments ApendxiI

GAO Contact Derek B. Stewart, (202) 512-5559 or stewartd@gao.gov

Acknowledgments In addition to those named above, David E. Moser, Assistant Director, 

Grace A. Coleman, Tanya Cruz, Nicole Gore, Gregg J. Justice III, Mitchell B. 

Karpman, Warren Lowman, Julia C. Matta, Charles W. Purdue, and Shana 

Wallace made key contributions to this report.

(350752)
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