rumitoid wrote:
Here is an interesting piece of American history I had never heard before (but which Banjojack, Mr.Archive, could probably write a book). The year is 1966 and we are in the most ill-advised conflict in our nation's existence. Johnson and McNamara concoct "Project 100,000." Below you will find excerpts from a passionate article at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/karenspearszacharias/2014/01/08/moron-corps/ reflecting that era.
"In fact, the New Man Standards lowered the requirements. McNamara was hoping to get an additional 100,000 bodies. He got far more than he anticipated. Nearly 350,000 men were either drafted or volunteered under Project 100,000. Many of them had low IQs, some as low as 75, earning them the name Moron Corps.
"Despite the mythology one reads online, these men were not required to meet all the standards of performance required of others. They were given special ID numbers so that their superiors would understand that they were part of the slow brigade. Men who couldnt read at a fourth-grade level or do long-division were sent to the front lines, where they were killed at an average four-times higher than their soldiers who were not part of the New Man Standards. McNamara and Johnson patted themselves on the back for giving what they undoubtedly considered bottom-feeders an opportunity at a better life.
"Perhaps that explains a lot of things, specifically how Johnson was willing to sell out our nations most vulnerable for a personally financially-rewarding relationship with corporate America. Johnson and his CEO cronies were the only real beneficiaries of a war so ill-conceived it overshadow all other American wars.
"His familiarity with the desperation that poverty produces likely explains why Johnson was so keen on exploiting urban blacks and poor white boys from the mountains of Kentucky & Tennessee, West Virginia & Alabama and sending them en masse to Vietnam to serve as cannon fodder."
Here is an interesting piece of American history I... (
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Not sure where you are going with this. I joined in 1964, at the age of 16. The enlisment requirements were much more lax in those years. Individuals were sometimes given the choice of jail or the military, education requirements were definitely not as strict as they are now. I served in Vietnam from Nov 67 - Nov 68, in both the infantry as well as a river rat. Most of us did not have a high school education (I got a GED before I turned 17-in the military). Some of the best soldiers were those with little education or "forced enlistments" courtesy of the judicial system at that time, and as an aside many were from Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arizona, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky etc. Many of them stayed in the military after they returned, and a great many got their GED and some even recei some college. The one thing everyone needs to know and remember is that when it comes down to the bottom line, is that the infantryman is the final solution. So when electronics and computer gadgets fail, that leaves the individual soldier with a weapon. Is one considered a moron because they are patriotic and prepared to give their life for their country? By the way I have two college degrees and retired after 39 years.