McNamara’s Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam
[ Editor’s Note: This was a YouTube suggestion for me last night, and blew me away. I had been a bit familiar with the story, as we have VT people who have told me about some of it.
The saddest part of this is how all those in the lower command tried over and over to stop these people from being sent to Vietnam into combat units as cannon fodder, and no one in the higher ranks wanted it on their record that they had challenged the Pentagon, for the predictable negative effects that would have on their careers.
Parallel to this was the flip side of the coin, where the George Bush’s and other politician’s kids were grabbing all the open National Guard slots, without the slightest embarrassment or fear of any media coverage exposure.
Author Hamilton Gregory’s 36 minute video is a piece of military history that is worth watching. If are lucky to have people that expose stuff like this. Please spread it around as most still don’t know about it and we need to be educating any remaining naive people out there on what the military command can capable of and then just classify it so it will never come out until they are dead and gone.
These low IQ people were not only a danger to themselves in a combat unit, but also to their fellow soldiers. Gregory’s comment of “they suffered horendous causaties” should have been enough to have the top Pentagon people castrated for what they did. Failing to do so gives those coming behind them that they can get aways with shit like this, and generally they do.
We have had a different version of the scandal going on in the horrendous military sexual abuse that the command structure has seem powerless to stop, requiring events like a savage murder before it would take action to have independent prosecutors.
The magic number is 25% of women in the military have gone through this. And frankly I don’t think a lot of the parents did what they should have. As I remember one mother saying about her daughter, “she went in to get the benefits, not all this other shit”, a plain spoken woman.
Also see: McNamara’s “Moron Corps” – HBO’s “Path to War” leaves out some of the most shameful brainstorms of the Vietnam War’s masterminds — including a little-known recruitment program that turned the mentally and physically deficient into cannon fodder.
- As Herb DeBose, a former black first lieutenant who was director of a New York City employment program for veterans, said at that time,
“I think McNamara should be shot. I saw him when he resigned from the World Bank, crying about the poor children of the world. But if he did not cry at all for any of those men he took in under Project 100,000, then he really doesn’t know what crying is all about. Many weren’t even on a 5th-grade level.”
I read only in a Washington Post IG report on Afghanistan that 90% of the Afghan army could only read at a 3rd grade level, and forget the mathematics part. The training program was just part of the grift.
The Taliban had no one that could read that well, but I did find a silver bullet quote about why they felt they won, which was “the Afghan army fights for money”. For what McNamara did to these men he should be stripped of every honor that he got as a lesson to all those coming behind him… Jim W. Dean ]
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First published … August 24, 2021
A presentation and reading by Hamilton Gregory, author of “McNamara’s Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam.”
Because so many college students were avoiding military service during the Vietnam War, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara lowered mental standards to induct 354,000 low-IQ men. Their death toll in combat was appalling.
Jim W. Dean is VT Editor Emeritus. He was an active editor on VT from 2010-2022. He was involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews. He now writes and posts periodically for VT.
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‘War is a Racket!’ The Control Freak Elites are getting wealthy, while the Lower Echelons of Society are taken to the Slaughter House! Is this DEMOCRACY? NO! It is Dictatorship/Control/RULE over the Common Folks, by a DEMONIC ELITE, the New Aristocracy, Wall Street Banksters, Hollywood ‘SLIME Entertainment’ Industry Evil Creatures! America is going DOWN the ASH HEAP of HISTORY!
Sick evil corrupted bastards!!
I am a Desert Storm veteran 1991. Initially I was so proud to serve in military, now I know we all have been played….including civilians too.
Don’t forget, you can go on YouTube and hear McNamara confess that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was nothing bit hot air. Thw Maddox was not damaged and no one was would dedicated or killed. Just sonar operators thinking that torpedo were firedoing it them that missed……..
Billions squandered, millions slaughtered and a fake reason for all the killing…. And so it goez, if it will ever stop, no one knows. At least Afghanistan will soon end.
I had three Project 100,000 soldiers serving under me in Okinawa. In many ways, they were better soldiers than those who met the full draft/enlistment standards. I was a food service sergeant and our team was able to capture the Best Mess Award several times, competing with all other US Army dining facilities on the Island.
Not all Project 100,000 men had lower IQs. Many had jail time, thus were unable for service. Others were “street smart” but failed to measure up on the entrance test due to cultural differences. Those who died in Viet Nam would have been sent home in a body bag regardless of their IQ. It is not fair to label those men as mental misfits. Most served proudly.
I was selected to undergo training at the Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning in 1966. I am here to say that the academic and field training was inadequate for being a combat officer. Our training for helicopter transportation to hot spots was held in a 2 1/2 ton truck. These officers were largely responsible for the deaths of their men because of lack of proper combat training. Luckily, I couldn’t get a security clearance and was washed out after 20 weeks, a week and a half from graduation. I thank my lucky stars for that then, a disappointment.
Intelligence has nothing to do with what is in ones heart. Bless you for your service and your revelation here. I am sorry our government let you and everyone down so miserably for the power of the privileged and not the good of the nation.
Our military has been nothing but a tool, ever since JFK was assinated.
Not a tool of national defense, but one strictly employed for the aims and benefits of the money power overlords.
It’s no secret. It’s just the way it is.
Everyone is owned by them now, in one way or another.
If they weren’t, surely someone, as an American patriot, would have done something about it.
Even the “patriots” are owned by the money lords.
I heard about this on NPR about a year back. Heart breaking. Young men with obvious, obvious IQ and other serious mental health problems were enlisted. At basic training, soldiers have it really tough but the drill sargents and other recruits immediately recognized that no way should these men be in the military. It looks like it as some sort of sick experiment by McNamara and his Pentagon “brain trust.”
I think not only they were cannon fodder – but the policy likely endangered the lives of the regular troops as the other men could not effectively do their jobs, including combat, which increased the danger for all.
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