McNamara's Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam War

There are not many people, to include Vietnam veterans, who know of or remember this project. I served at Long Binh Post with a soldier who was a Project 100,000 acquisition in 1968. His First Sergeant used him as a Duty Soldier (an actual MOS back in the day!). After assigning the soldier to a series of increasingly simpler tasks, his only requirement was to water the lawn. (Yes, this company actually had grass growing in the company area around the Orderly Room! They also had a water fountain in the company area, but that is a story for another time.)

After leaving the running water hose unattended, the Orderly Room became flooded. The next day the soldier was reclassified as an 11B and shipped up north to an area near the DMZ. No one ever heard what became of him.

We knew about this at HQ, MACV. They were called McNamara's 100,000. That is how many were brought into active duty. MACV would not accept any of them, scores too low. The were mostly assigned to manual labor type jobs, but many ended up in the infantry.
Forest Gump.

Sad.

Interesting video sir, thank you.