McNamara's 100,000, Redux

"During the Vietnam War, Robert McNamara began a program called Project 100,000.

The program brought over 300,000 men to Vietnam who failed to meet minimum criteria for militarty service, both physically and mentally.

• Project 100,000 recruits were killed in disproportionate numbers and fared worse after their military service than their civilian peers, making the program one of the biggest—and possibly cruelest—mistakes of the Vietnam War." 

©Big Think, lifted entirely from writers better than I.

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THEY'RE DOING IT AGAIN!

You'll only remember this terrible failed program if you were there or if one of them was your son or if you're a studious historian of the war. I was there, though, and I had one of them in my aircraft maintenance platoon. Harry.

Harry was a misfit in every sense of the word. He had a decidedly lower-than-average IQ. He had no idea of the work-for-pay contract he had made with the Army. He didn't understand that the Army, and society in general, had expectations of him.

Plus, he was a heroin addict. Heroin was as cheap as whiskey. I was in no way a criminal investigator and never wanted to be. Nevertheless, I busted two large heroin stashes. One included holding my .45 at a soldier/drug dealer's head.

All of that is to be expected when you announce that you're going to induct 100,000 men who didn't meet Army standards yesterday but they do today. They tended to be disruptive and needy and under educated. They were shoved through some kind of basic training and shipped off to war as replacements for experienced war fighters who were going home. 

Imagine Harry playing pin the tail on the donkey in the middle of a firefight. He was hopeless. Commanders needed to get rid of men like Harry for the safety of the other men in their units. So, of course, they sent them to "the rear." Commanders in the rear were forced to find jobs for them. You can't be a soldier in a war zone without a job.

Harry was my parts clerk. His job was to store and account for our myriad collection of helicopter parts and order more when we were running out. Store them in an orderly fashion and let my platoon sergeant know when our stocks were running low. That's it, that was his job. 

He didn't understand it. He put boxes of just-arrived parts on the floor of our CONEX, or on a shelf, and walk away. Out of sight, out of mind. We had the parts somewhere. Maybe.

We had indigenous workers, men and women, doing menial work for our company. The most menial was, and please forgive me here, "Shit burner." They pulled the half-barrels out from under our latrines, poured diesel fuel on them and set the mess on fire. An ugly job but someone had to do it, as ugly as the thick black smoke rising from the fires.

During Tet, locals were locked out of the base. The latrines began to overflow. Someone had to do that job, but who? Why, Harry, of course. He's not good for anything else but anyone can burn shit, right? BTW, this was NOT my decision. Blame our first sergeant.

Harry pulled the first half-barrel out from under the latrine and poured gasoline into it. Sadly, he leaned over with his lighter and set it on fire. Explosion, burning shit everywhere, Harry screaming "Put me out!" Gasoline is not like diesel. Minor burns everywhere, hospital, sent home to "Recover." End of the experiment for Harry.

We're doing it again. Our military has had such problems recruiting that they have lowered their standards. They have programs to bring potential recruits up to their new, lowered standards.

McNamara tried that before. It failed. SecDef is trying it again today. Is it so hard to see that it's going to fail again? 

Certainly, a few will rise above their plights to become useful soldiers. Always have, always will. But at what cost?

We have nothing against people who suffer with illnesses, physical or mental. Theirs are hard roads and they need and deserve every break we can give them.

But PLEASE, don't put them in the Army and send them into combat. Let this story be a reminder. They will cause people to die who otherwise might have survived.

This new effort is an old package with a new ribbon. I've been there. I once had a recruit who ran around my Ft. Ord barracks all day, asking people, "Have you seen the white rabbit?" No, I haven't, but I've seen the result of lower standards for recruits.