Project 100,000

File:U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara visited Rhein-Main Air Base at Frankfurt Germany.jpg during a visit to Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt, West Germany, 1962]]

At various times, the United States Armed Forces has recruited people who measured below specific mental and medical standards. During World War II, those who scored in certain lower percentiles of mental aptitude tests were admitted into service. However, this experience eventually led to a legal floor of IQ 80 to enlist. Another instance occurred in the 1980s due to an error in setting the score norm on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery.{{cite journal |first=Linda S. |last=Gottfredson |title=Why 'g' Matters: The Complexity of Everyday Life |journal=Intelligence|doi=10.1016/S0160-2896(97)90014-3 |date=January–February 1997 |volume=24 |pages=91|citeseerx=10.1.1.535.4596 }}

By October 1966, monthly draft calls had been steadily increasing for 15 consecutive months; it stood at 49,300, the highest since early 1951, the peak mobilization period of the Korean War, when 80,000 men a month were called up.{{Cite magazine|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843010,00.html |title=Refilling the Pool |date=November 11, 1966 |magazine=Time}} In a series of decisions, the Pentagon lowered its required score for induction on the Armed Forces Qualification Test to as low as the 10th percentile – a 6% drop.{{Cite magazine|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843010,00.html |title=Refilling the Pool |date=November 11, 1966 |magazine=Time}}

According to Hamilton Gregory, author of McNamara's Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam War:{{ cite AV media |first=Hamilton |last=Gregory |title=McNamara's Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam War |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J2VwFDV4-g |website=YouTube |time=24:30 |format=Video|date=April 29, 2016 |accessdate=September 25, 2019 }}{{cite book |last1=Gregory |first1=Hamilton |title=McNamara's Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam War|date=2015 |publisher=Infinity Publishing |isbn=978-1495805486 |edition=Paper |url=https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2333328079 |accessdate=26 September 2019}}

{{quote|McNamara was a lover of technology ... McNamara believed he could win the war in Vietnam through the use of advanced technology and computerized analysis ... And he believed he could raise the intelligence of men through the use of video tapes.}}

Promoted as a response to President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty by giving training and opportunity to the uneducated and poor, the recruited men were classified as "New Standards Men" (or, pejoratively, as the "Moron Corps"{{cite web|url=http://www.salon.com/2002/05/30/mcnamara_3/|title=McNamara's 'Moron Corps'|last=MacPherson|first=Myra|author-link=Myra MacPherson|website=Salon.com|date=May 30, 2002|accessdate=August 23, 2014}}). They had scored in Category IV of the Armed Forces Qualification Test, which placed them in the 10th–30th percentile range.{{cite web |author=Laurence, Janice H|title=Effects of Military Experience on the Post-Service Lives of Low-Aptitude Recruits: Project 100,000 and the ASVAB Misnorming |url=https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED366751 |date=December 1989 |accessdate=November 22, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140302092228/https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED366751 | archive-date=2014-03-02 |display-authors=etal}} The number of soldiers reportedly recruited through the program varies, from more than 320,000 to 354,000, which included both voluntary enlistees and draftees (54% and 46%, respectively). Entrance requirements were loosened, but all the Project 100,000 men were sent through normal training programs with other recruits, and performance standards thus were the same for everyone.{{cite web |author=Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower and Reserve Affairs) |title=Project One Hundred Thousand; Characteristics and Performance of "New Standards" Men. Description of Project One Hundred Thousand. |date=September 1968 |accessdate=November 22, 2009 |url=http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED031634&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED031634}} The U.S. Army received 71% of recruits, followed by 10% by the Marines, 10% by the Navy, and 9% by the Air Force.

Project 100,000 soldiers included those unable to speak English, those who had low mental aptitude or minor physical impairments, and those who were slightly over- or underweight.{{Citation needed|date=October 2022}} They also included a special category made up of a control group of "normal" soldiers. Each category was identified in the soldiers' official personnel records by a large red letter stamped on the first page of their enlistment contracts. Human resources offices had to prepare reports on them to be submitted monthly to the Department of the Army. The monthly reports did not disclose the identity of the soldiers.

File:"Mortar Platoon, Oklahoma Hills", April 1969 - 50066248182.jpg

While the project was promoted as a response to President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty, it has been an object of criticism.{{cite news|first=Kelly M. |last=Greenhill |title=Don't Dumb Down the Army |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/opinion/17Greenhill.html |work=The New York Times |date=February 17, 2006 |accessdate=November 22, 2009}} Regarding the consequences of the program, a 1989 study sponsored by the DoD concluded:

{{quote|Comparisons between Project 100,000 participants and their non-veteran peers showed that, in terms of employment status, educational achievement, and income, non-veterans appeared better off. Veterans were more likely to be unemployed and to have a significantly lower level of education. Income differences ranged from $5,000 [to] $7,000 in favor of non-veterans. Veterans were more likely to have been divorced.}}

A 1995 review by Myra MacPherson in Washington Monthly of McNamara's book, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, severely criticized the project, saying that "the program offered a one-way ticket to Vietnam, where these men fought and died in disproportionate numbers ... the men of the 'Moron Corps' provided the necessary cannon fodder to help evade the political horror of dropping student deferments or calling up the reserves, which were sanctuaries for the lily-white."{{cite journal |first=Myra |last=MacPherson |title=McNamara's 'other' crimes: the stories you haven't heard |journal=Washington Monthly |date=June 1995 |volume=27 |issue=6 |page=28 |url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/McNamara%27s+%27other%27+crimes%3A+the+stories+you+haven%27t+heard.-a017040672}}

Project 100,000 was highlighted in a 2006 op-ed in The New York Times in which former Wesleyan assistant professor and then Tufts assistant professor Kelly M. Greenhill, writing in the context of a contemporary recruitment shortfall, concluded that "Project 100,000 was a failed experiment. It proved to be a distraction for the military and of little benefit to the men it was created to help." To explain why veterans from the project fared worse in civilian life than their non-veteran peers, Greenhill hypothesized it might be related to the psychological consequences of combat or unpreparedness for the post-military transition.

• Disability draft
• Forrest Gump
• Full Metal Jacket
• Intelligence and public policy
• McNamara fallacy

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Category:Military history of the United States during the Vietnam War

Category:United States Department of Defense

Category:Disability in the United States