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Service leaders tell lawmakers waiver use has increased as committee presses on medical disqualifications and mental‑health records
Summary
Members raised multiple cases of recruits and service‑academy nominees denied on the basis of old medical or mental‑health records. Panel witnesses said waiver volume has risen substantially and acknowledged inconsistency across services, and they agreed a Department of Defense–level review and streamlining is needed.
Congress members pressed service leaders over instances where recruits and service‑academy nominees were medically disqualified on the basis of remote or sparsely documented childhood records and histories of short‑term mental‑health treatment. Lawmakers described specific cases in which applicants who sought help as children were later told they could not enter service academies or receive ROTC commissions.
“You need them,” one congresswoman said of applicants who sought mental‑health treatment as youth and later want to serve. She described a case in…
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