Posted on 12/18/2005 9:50:43 AM PST by 68skylark
Those numbers are percentile standing among those tested.
A score of 30 (Cat IVa) means that 30 percent of those tested scored the same or worse. A 99 means that person scored better than 99% of those tested.
Cat IV's were very common in the 60's and 70's.
I've worked for some and supervised some. I'd much rather supervise them than work for them.
There's a place for Cat IVs if their other aptitude scores are good enough. Often when the AFQT score is low, the training area aptitude scores are also low and it gets worse with females.
They still have to make it through training. I would guess if they make it, they make it and want to be there. So far so good.
I recall in one war being in AF basic training with one man that was quite evident a nut case. The AF was taking warm bodies.
One month into basic and one day two Army MPs drive up and put the nut case in cuffs and drive off. Turned out he was AWOL from the Army. The Army and AF were guilty of "fudging" with warm bodies, but, what the heck, they met their quotas.
I agree with you. The ASVAB tries to predict who will succeed in training and in their first enlistment -- those with low scores tend to fail at much higher rates, which costs a lot of money and grief. But for those who make it, I'm glad for their service.
Actually, the IQ curve is a truncated normal distribution, and the mean/median/mode coincide. But it was still funny.
Well, second louies are an entirely different matter.
Schools generally place students in special education at the level of 79 on an IQ score. Somebody in Cat IV is just barely skirting that kind of placement which would disqualify from enlistment.
I had one of these types in my unit in the late 70s -- eventually it was determined he was fraudulently enlisted because of recruiter help on the test. But this was not before he ended up with a bad discharge due to striking his NCO...
Not being able to write is ignorance, not stupidity. Being ignorant just comes from not having the opportunity to learn. Lots of very smart people have been too poor to get educated. Granted, that was in our not-too-distant past. There may still be some of those folks today. I dunno.
The ignorant can be trained; the stupid cannot.
I don't care about having ignorant soldiers...but I wouldn't want stupid soldiers.
Dang!
You mean to tell us that there is imperfection in the military recruiting system and sometimes people get in who shouldn't be in? /sarcasm
As far as fudging, you are alleging fraud on the part of those recruiters. I seriously cannot imagine a recruiter knowingly processing someone AWOL since it would be illegal for him to do so and way too easy to get caught.
Recruiters like everyone else, face pressures and sometimes they, like everyone else, fail to meet the ideals.
But I really don't appreciate that you're alleging fraudulent conduct on the part of some recruiters on the case you cited nor do I appreciate your allegations of systemic fraud and misrepresentation of recruiting results by the military.
There's a lot of fine people that you smear with charges like that.
During a strong economy, is it a surprise that top recruits would have other options?
coffee on keyboard. LOLOLOL.
lol...no doubt!
Sometimes it is easier to work around the slightly dense than the exceedingly intelligent.
The fallacy of your argument is that somewhat ignorant civilians end up being stupid soldiers. This ignores the winnowing process that takes place during Basic and Advanced Training.
High school graduation rates are about 70%. Many of those 30% will be illiterate but not stupid.
Yes, we're truly blessed with a great economy these days, and it's surely been a factor with military recruiting.
Whatever the reason for recruiting shortfalls -- whether it's the red-hot economy or any other reasons -- we've got to make sure that military service is attractive enough to attract good recruits.
This article tells me we have to take a new look at things like pay, bonuses, living conditions, etc, to keep recruiting strong. And we've got to make sure that military service has intangible rewards -- like respect -- so that smart young people want to serve.
At the time the AF had no local centers for physicals so we went through the Army physical. To see if you were "mentally" acceptable the last station was a shrink. He asked if I could drive a tractor and I said no, I was acceptable on that.
Horse apples!
My experience with cat-4 enlistees covers almost all of my 22-year USAF career. Most are very trainable, accept military discipline without problem, and make good troops. All cat-4 means is they scored in a fairly low percentile on the military aptitude tests. Doesn't mean they are stoopid! Hells bells, I scored fairly low on a couple of the aptitude tests!
Ok, I'll take your word on it that he was obviously a nut case and some recruiter was just throwing stuff against the wall to see if it would stick. But I'd also have to accept that the same recruiter would commit fraud. I don't see that happening like this nowadays so I'll just have to infer that this was back in times of yore before the computer era. Brown boot time. Probably two months after phasing out the 'Ike Jacket'.
We can all agree that only the best and brightest would be the optimal situation for our military. Reality rears it's ugly head at the worst possible moments though. My experience (with the all volunteer Navy) can best be summed up by noting that not one man in my unit failed the service, instead it was the service that failed them. Junior officers who did not care for their men turned many a fine sailor into a problem for the command.
Not that you don't get an occasional bad egg. No recruit training system is perfect. I saw many of these would be bad eggs turned into some of the finest men you would ever want to serve with.
I went through 'Not on my watch', 'Operation bottom blow' and others to flush the system of trouble makers. I made it my goal to ensure that these guys got one last shot to get their acts together. My CO and XO sent anyone that went to mast and was to be booted to my division. My 1st class and I worked hard to undo the damage done when these boys were not properly cared for. The end result was that after 2 years only 1 out of 19 men 'dumped' to us had left the Navy. 18 ended up re-enlisting of those 3 are E-7s and above. I think if you look at todays military you will find what I say to be true. We can take anyone that wants to serve and give them the opportunity to succeed. The test scores just give us a hint at who has the best odds of making it. Almost all of them can get the job done.
Any other branches want to check in on this?
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