Greetings to all who are interested in this topic! In this post I will talk about the program known as "100.000".
Not everyone knows that during the Vietnam War in the United States there was a program to recruit recruits with low intelligence and physical disabilities into the army. The creator of the program is Robert Strange McNamara, who was the US Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968. Starting from October 1, 1966, the minimum test result for entering the armed forces was changed and artificially lowered.
Nowadays, the maximum score (percentage) of the ASVAB test is 99, the minimum recruit score should be more than 30. Of course, much has changed since the 1960s and the ASVAB test has been conducted only since 1968, but the system only changes its name while maintaining its essence. A quick look at the sample questions on the official testing website (https://www.official-asvab.com) suggests that most of the questions should be successfully answered by an elementary or high school student. Only a person with a really low level of intelligence can fail to score a minimum score. An example of a math question - a motorcycle costs so much, depreciates by 10% per year, what the price of a motorcycle will be in 1 year.
During the use of the "100,000" program from 1966 to 1971, the lower test threshold was reduced three times. During this period of time, 354 thousand recruits selected according to the new system were sent to Vietnam, in fact, this contingent consisted of mentally retarded people. Officially, it was help for the poor and uneducated.
Young people living in urban ghettos, remote villages and mountainous areas (many with criminal inclinations) allegedly received the opportunity to receive training and after service get a normal job, for example, become drivers or security guards. In fact, these people went to Vietnam, officially they were called "people of a new standard" (New Standards Men), not officially - "McNamara's Morons". I remember the feature film "Forest Gump", and some other films that show the Vietnam war with the presence of people with obvious disabilities. According to the memoirs of veterans, many "McNamara idiots" really did not know how to read, did not always understand where they were, were often dangerous for their own colleagues. With the arrival of such replenishment in the army, such phenomena as drug addiction, desertion, and the murder of their own officers sharply increased. Cases are described when, due to the wrong actions of such “Forest Gump”, other soldiers died during the clashes. Officers and NCOs took the program as a disaster.
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The main goal pursued by the top leadership of the United States was to recruit the required number of soldiers without additional growth of social tension in society. Student anti-war demonstrations, attempts to reduce and cancel a number of deferrals from service, conscription of people belonging to the "middle class", all of this, of course, negatively affected the popularity of the government.
Antiwar demonstration in the United States.
With the help of bright advertising and under the guise of "fighting poverty" people from disadvantaged strata of the population with obvious deviations in development were turned into "cannon fodder." The casualties among the McNamara idiots were three times the average of the "standard" casualties. Of course, such people should not be in the army, much less take part in armed conflicts.
Returning from the war, these people did not become in the main "worthy members of society" as McNamara promised. They were not hired, and this time they did not fill up the active army, but the army of the unemployed.
Robert McNamara.
McNamara's rhetoric of those years is somewhat reminiscent of the officials of Nazi Germany, who spoke about social justice and equal opportunities, but in fact meant only new sacrifices. McNamara subsequently became President of the World Bank and remained in this position until 1981. An interesting fact - once while on a passenger ferry in the coastal waters of the United States, one of the passengers recognized him and tried to throw McNamara overboard. The former defense minister did not write a statement to the police. McNamara died at the age of 93. As one Vietnam War veteran said, "the dead soldiers still carrying out orders are waiting for McNamara in Hell," another veteran said, "More people died from McNamara's actions than from the Viet Cong's."