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Marine moms, dads, often drop out of boot camp
A fairly balanced article for the AP. They actually provide numbers and a little perspective from a Marine spokesman.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Franklin Smith had a wife and an infant son when he convinced a recruiter in Biloxi, Miss., that he wanted to be a Marine. For the recruiter, bringing in a family man like Smith was a dropout risk - even greater than recruiting someone with a criminal record, according to data obtained by The Associated Press.

In these days of long and repeated warfront tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 10 percent of the male recruits who are married with one or more children, or are financially responsible for a dependent, don't even finish Marine boot camp, according to the Center for Naval Analysis. For women in similar circumstances, the dropout rate jumps to three in 10.

Three-year trends show that recruits who have family responsibilities or did not earn formal high school diplomas are most likely to wash out before they finish initial training. Those recruits also fail more often to complete their first terms of enlistment.
Posted by: Steve White 2008-07-06
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=243522