And they STILL can't make their numbers

via the Rocky Mountain News:

Two Army recruiters in Golden have been suspended from their jobs while military officials look into allegations the two men used improper tactics to get an Arvada high school student to sign up for duty.
...
The report featured David McSwane, an Arvada West High School honors student and editor of his school newspaper, who was "curious" to see what recruiters at a Golden recruitment facility would do if he told them he wanted to join the Army as a high school dropout with a serious marijuana problem.

McSwane, 17, said he had read about the challenges the military was facing in recruiting and wanted to find out "how desperate they really are."
...
Starting in January, McSwane met with two recruiters in Golden several times and secretly taped a series of phone calls with them. On the tapes, one recruiter is apparently heard encouraging McSwane to create a fake high school diploma to cover for the fact that he had dropped out.

"It can be like Faith Hill Baptist School or something - whatever you choose," the recruiter said.

McSwane said he bought a phony diploma, complete with a transcript, from a Web site for $200. He was told that it passed the Army's academic evaluation.

"At one point, I thought he would look up my academic record, but he never did," McSwane said.

McSwane got a friend to film another recruiter driving him to a store to purchase a detoxification kit to rid his system of supposed marijuana traces.

So much to marvel at here. The tactics. The immorality. And the fact that even when the Army is willing to go to such lengths to drug-using high school drop-outs, they are still falling short of their recruitment goals. And the Times reports that this is no rogue prison guard scenario -- this stuff is going on everywhere.