U.S. Army Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, left, swears in new military recruits during a Memorial Day parade in Chicago, May 28, 2011.

In an effort to trim its overall number of soldiers, the Army is upping recruit requirements, canceling most enlistment bonuses and simply telling others to leave, according to an Associated Press report.

The move is a dramatic change for an organization that only years ago was offering up to $18,000 in enlistment bonuses and allowing some recruits with felony convictions to join.

In March the Army was at about 558,000 troops, down from 570,000 during the peak time of the Iraq War. The goal is to get the figure to 490,000 troops by 2017, according to the story.

An excerpt from the story:

In 2006, about 20 percent of new Army recruits came in under some type of waiver, and by the next year it had grown to nearly three in 10. After the Defense Department issued new guidelines, the percentage needing waivers started to come down in 2009.

Now, as the Army moves to reduce its force, some soldiers will have to leave.

Officials say they hope to make cuts largely through voluntary attrition. But Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, has warned that as much as 35 percent of the cuts will be "involuntary" ones that force soldiers to abandon what they had hoped would be long military careers.

Source: The Associated Press