Watch or download Senator King’s questioning HERE

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), U.S. Senator Angus King asked Department of Defense officials to ensure that common mental health conditions are not preventing young Americans from joining the Armed Forces. As the U.S. military faces serious recruiting challenges, King pressed Under Secretary of the Army Gabriel Camarillo on the need for an efficient, streamlined health clearance process that would allow Americans with conditions like depression or ADHD to serve – pointing out that if there are too many barriers, a potential recruit may abandon the process for the private sector instead.

“I'm not advocating lowering standards to the point where it endangers safety or the effectiveness of the Army, but a lot of teenagers are suffering, in part, from depression coming out of the pandemic. ADHD is a common condition affecting about 10% of young people in our country – they take medication. All of those things in the first instance are barriers,” said Senator King. “So, I think what Senator Cotton and I are saying is the waiver process is fine, except it's a waiver ‘process’ and it involves a lot of steps and a lot of time, and somebody might just say, ‘the heck with it. I've got a good offer over here in the private sector.’ So, give me your thoughts about you mentioned streamlining that process. Go a little deeper on that.”

“I think first what I'd say is we've got to maximize the flexibility within the waiver process and streamline it so that we can achieve the commonsense results that you and Senator Cotton were talking about,” replied Under Secretary Camarillo.

“And streamline entails or implies faster?” asked Senator King.

“Yes, Senator,” Under Secretary Camarillo clarified.

“Months and months are not going to do because this young person is going to say, ‘the heck with this. I'm moving on,’”  Senator King pointed out.

“Right. And I've looked at the data in the Army, and you'll find that even in the last year, year and a half, the biggest kind of request for waivers that we get are behavioral health where somebody has sought out behavioral health care earlier in their life, or they've been treated for depression or anxiety, ADHD, which are very common, as we know, in the target population. So, we're seeing the number of those waivers being granted increase,” responded Under Secretary Camarillo. “I think to your point, we've got to figure out how to get to the left of that. We've got to work more closely, which is step two across the Department with how we're doing our medical as sessions and what those standards are to make sure that they're updated with the latest science and, most importantly, what the part target population looks like.”

King concluded his questioning by highlighting that servicemembers who received waivers have similar success in the Armed Forces compared to those without waivers.

“I would commend you. A RAND Corporation study from, I think, October of ‘21 that studied what the outcomes were of people that came in on the waivers vis-a-vis the other applicants. Basically, they found essentially no difference,” concluded Senator King. “In fact, some of these people did actually better in terms of making rank and retention. So I think the data is going to be very important on this.”

As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator King has worked to ensure the Armed Forces are able to provide opportunities for young Americans and can meet recruitment goals necessary to protect American interests. He has repeatedly pressed top Pentagon nominees about the concerning shift in the U.S. military’s active duty members increasingly coming from the South and West, and the decline in military representation from the Northeast and Midwest.