The Unfortunate Moron Corps
In reality, contra how the US government portrayed it, Project 100,000’s only goal was to find bodies to for the military, and to do that, it lowered or abandoned minimal military recruitment standards. The goal was to simply sign up as many as possible of those who had previously been rejected by the draft as mentally or physically unfit. Recruiters swept through Southern backwaters and urban ghettoes, to sign up anybody with a pulse. That included at least one recruit with an IQ of 62. In all, 354,000 were recruited. They were not given any special skills or training.
Once they signed on the dotted line, “McNamara’s Morons”, or “the Moron Corps”, as they were derisively called by other soldiers, were rushed through training, then sent to Vietnam in disproportionate numbers. Once in Vietnam, they were sent into combat in disproportionate numbers. In combat, the mental and physical limitations that had caused the Project 100,000 recruits to be rejected by the draft ensured that they were wounded and killed in disproportionate numbers. The toll fell particularly heavily on black youths: 41 percent of Project 100,000’s recruits were black, compared to 12 percent in the US military as a whole.