“(a) In General.—The Secretary of Defense shall carry out reforms in the recruiting systems of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps in order to improve the quality of new recruits and to reduce attrition among recruits.
“(b) Specific Reforms.—As part of the reforms in military recruiting systems to be undertaken under subsection (a), the Secretary shall take the following steps:“(1) Improve the system of pre-enlistment waivers and separation codes used for recruits by (A) revising and updating those waivers and codes to allow more accurate and useful data collection about those separations, and (B) prescribing regulations to ensure that those waivers and codes are interpreted in a uniform manner by the military services.
“(2) Develop a reliable database for (A) analyzing (at both the Department of Defense and service-level) data on reasons for attrition of new recruits, and (B) undertaking Department of Defense or service-specific measures (or both) to control and manage such attrition.
“(3) Require that the Secretary of each military department (A) adopt or strengthen incentives for recruiters to thoroughly prescreen potential candidates for recruitment, and (B) link incentives for recruiters, in part, to the ability of a recruiter to screen out unqualified candidates before enlistment.
“(4) Require that the Secretary of each military department include as a measurement of recruiter performance the percentage of persons enlisted by a recruiter who complete initial combat training or basic training.
“(5) Assess trends in the number and use of waivers over the 1991–1997 period that were issued to permit applicants to enlist with medical or other conditions that would otherwise be disqualifying.
“(6) Require the Secretary of each military department to implement policies and procedures (A) to ensure the prompt separation of recruits who are unable to successfully complete basic training, and (B) to remove those recruits from the training environment while separation proceedings are pending.
“(c) Report.—Not later than March 31, 1998, the Secretary shall submit to Congress a report of the trends assessed under subsection (b)(5). The information on those trends provided in the report shall be shown by armed force and by category of waiver. The report shall include recommendations of the Secretary for changing, revising, or limiting the use of waivers referred to in that subsection.
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