An Administration’s Desperation for Manpower to Send to Vietnam
Without the support of America’s middle and upper classes, or at least their acquiescence, the country’s involvement in Vietnam could not continue. Such support or acquiescence would not last long if their kids’ student deferments were cancelled, and they were drafted and sent to fight and die in a far off country most Americans could not place on a map. The mobilization of reservists could also furnish enough bodies. However, that posed a similar dilemma: the reserves and National Guard were overwhelmingly filled with the children of the well-off and connected.
To send the children of the well-heeled to fight and possibly die in Vietnam would produce a fierce backlash. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara thus had to solve a conundrum: find more bodies, but not those of middle and upper class Americans’ kids. He came up with a shameful brainchild: Project 100,000. It was touted as a Great Society program that would help impoverished and disadvantaged youth, teach them valuable skills in the military, and thus break the cycle of poverty. As seen below, the program’s reality differed greatly from how the government billed it to the public.