Irene Loewenson, Geoff Ziezulewicz:
The annals of U.S. military valor feature scores of heroes who concealed part of their medical history to serve their country.
Consider President John F. Kennedy. As a young man, he suffered a host of painful, disqualifying physical ailments, such as back pain and ulcers, but leaned on his father’s connections to get around the required Navy medical exams.
Lt. Kennedy went on to command a patrol torpedo boat that a Japanese warship sheared in half during World War II, and he later received a Purple Heart and Navy and Marine Corps Medal.
In recent decades, the lies told to enlist haven’t approached those extremes.
Nonetheless, fudging medical histories has been a key step on many troops’ path from applicant to recruit, according to a group of active-duty military recruiters who spoke with Military Times for this story.
“What it takes to get in the Army is, quite frankly, a lot of fraud and perjury,” one recruiter said.
The military comic strip “Terminal Lance” in 2021 poked fun at lying to enlist. (Adapted, with permission, from Terminal Lance creator Maximilian Uriarte.)
But this tacit tradition — technically a crime — largely stopped in 2022, the same year the military’s recruiting numbers fell precipitously and today’s recruiting crisis came to the fore.
That year, the Defense Department brought a new medical records platform, known as Military Health System Genesis, online at Military Entrance Processing Stations, where applicants are medically examined before they can sign up.