Army rejects 24,000 Commonwealth recruits over five years because of ‘lack of vacancies’

More than 23,000 potential Army recruits from the Commonwealth have had their applications rejected in the past five years because of a shortage of vacancies. Figures released by the Ministry of Defence reveal that last year 7,704 recruits from Commonwealth countries were rejected even though the Army is about 7,500 troops short of its required number of 82,000. However one former senior officer said rejecting potential recruits from Commonwealth countries when the army was short of troops was “nonsense”. A childhood rugby injury can preclude somebody and therefore we are constantly challenging the Army to relook at their policy and processes.” He said: “The amount of medical scrutiny that we now have, and the amount of medical evidence and medical science has progressed such that we have far much more data on people than we used to have.” Potential recruits with ‘sex act’ tattoos barred The figures also show that more than 70,000 potential soldiers were refused entry for medical issues such as nut allergies, asthma, and historical injuries such as bones broken in childhood.