19. Project 100,000
To solve the military’s manpower shortfall without antagonizing middle and upper-class Americans by sending their kids to Vietnam, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara came up with a shameful brainchild: Project 100,000. It was touted as a Great Society program that would take impoverished and disadvantaged youth, and break the cycle of poverty by teaching them valuable skills in the military.
In reality, Project 100,000 simply amounted to lowering or abandoning minimal military recruitment standards, to sign up those who had previously been rejected by the draft as mentally or physically unfit. Recruiters swept through Southern backwaters and urban ghettoes, signing up almost anybody with a pulse, including at least one recruit with an IQ of 62. In all, 354,000 were recruited.