Pentagon may ease recruiting rules for obese people, pot smokers and single parents

Trainees take part in Army Basic Combat Training at Fort Jackson, S.C. (Department of Defense) **FILE**

 

Ash Carter on ‘Force of the Future’ reforms: ‘We’re going to review and update these standards’

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter spoke on “Force of the Future” military reforms this week that may involve relaxed recruiting rules on everything from single-parent enlistees to drug use and obesity.

A Tuesday event at City College of New York featured Mr. Carter speaking on the challenges of recruitment in a nation that is fatter, increasingly at ease with smoking marijuana, and producing more single-parent homes. The result has been a fighting force that is gleaned from rural areas at twice the rate of urban environments.