"I'm telling you," Command Sergeant Major Ronald Ham- mer told a New York Times reporter at Fort Hood, Texas, last spring, "we are so much better today than we were a year ago." Because the Army is signing up better-qualified soldiers and dis- charging those who do not perform well, the "[one] thing you don't hear," added Sgt. Major Malachi Mitchel, "is that old standard: I came in the Army to keep from going to jail."
This marks a major change. After the...