Several recruiters, in interviews over the past six months, said they were told in February to start accepting more recruits who are ranked in Category 4 on the military's standardized aptitude test - those who score between the 10th and 30th percentiles on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery

A recruiter in Washington, who insisted on anonymity to protect his career, said that at the time, he was concerned about whether these recruits could handle the increasingly high-technology tools of combat.