Shameful History: Project 100,000

Summary

Shameful History: Project 100,000 - A Detailed Exploration

Podcast: Stuff You Should Know
Hosts: Josh Clark and Jerry
Release Date: June 24, 2025
Producer: iHeartPodcasts

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Introduction

In the episode titled "Shameful History: Project 100,000", hosts Josh Clark and Jerry delve into a lesser-known yet profoundly impactful chapter of American military history. They explore Project 100,000, a controversial military recruitment initiative during the Vietnam War era, examining its origins, implementation, and the lasting consequences it had on thousands of American lives.

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Origins of Project 100,000

The discussion begins with an acknowledgment of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's role in shaping the U.S. military's recruitment strategies. Clark introduces the concept by highlighting the need for more soldiers during a time of escalating military engagement.

Josh Clark [02:03]: "Another name of it was McNamara's morons, from Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. But that name is awful, so I'd love to not use it again."

This derogatory moniker underscores the insensitive nature of the project, which aimed to lower military recruitment standards to address manpower shortages.

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Implementation and Recruitment Practices

Project 100,000 was officially announced in 1966, following earlier, less formal attempts by McNamara to bolster troop numbers. The program sought to enlist individuals who previously fell short of military standards, particularly in intelligence and physical fitness.

Josh Clark [09:14]: "We're taking people out of abject poverty, giving them a chance to have a life for themselves and provide a stable home for their children, who can then go on to become middle class and so on and so forth."

The initiative promised rehabilitation and upward mobility for recruits, positioning military service as a pathway out of poverty. However, critics soon emerged, questioning the ethical implications and the readiness of these recruits for combat roles.

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Experiences of Recruits

Clark and Jerry shed light on the harsh realities faced by the 354,000 men who were part of Project 100,000. A staggering 91% of these recruits did not meet the previous IQ requirements, with an average IQ of 75, compared to the standard 100.

Jerry [23:40]: "And they were like, you know, guys, before we go into our next war, which we should do pretty soon, we need to, like, have a real plan in place for this and get the manpower we need the right way."

The hosts discuss the manipulative recruitment tactics employed, including misleading promises about assignments and the use of administrative acceptance to bypass eligibility criteria.

Josh Clark [24:04]: "So they could say whatever they want. They could say, you're not going to go to the front line. Maybe you won't even go to Vietnam."

Once enlisted, many of these men faced severe mistreatment during basic training and were often inadequately prepared for the rigors of combat. The emotional and psychological toll was immense, leading to higher instances of PTSD, homelessness, and other socio-economic challenges post-service.

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Consequences and Aftermath

The deployment of Project 100,000 recruits to Vietnam had devastating effects. The fatality rate among these men was three times higher than that of average soldiers, with 5,478 killed and 20,000 injured, including 500 amputees.

Josh Clark [27:04]: "5,478 of them were killed in Vietnam, which was a fatality rate three times higher than your average soldier."

Furthermore, upon returning to the United States, these veterans struggled significantly more than their counterparts. They faced higher unemployment rates, lower earnings, and increased susceptibility to mental health issues.

Josh Clark [39:16]: "The veterans had worse financial outcomes. There was a study in the 80s that found that 10% of low IQ veterans were unemployed, compared with only 3% of low IQ, non-veterans, and earned less money, an average of $18,000 a year, compared to $24,000 a year for non-veterans."

The stigma of dishonorable discharges compounded these challenges, limiting access to veteran benefits and societal reintegration opportunities.

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Criticism and Reflections

The program faced substantial criticism from various quarters. Civil rights leaders like Congressman Adam Clayton Powell condemned it as a form of genocide targeting poor Black Americans.

Josh Clark [11:31]: "Congressman Adam Clayton Powell who said, this is genocide for poor black Americans. It's nothing more than killing off human beings that are not members of the elite."

Even within the military, leaders opposed the project, arguing that the army's role should not extend to rehabilitating individuals with educational deficiencies.

Jerry [12:25]: "But the guy who wrote We Were Soldiers, Joe Galloway, he was embedded with the seventh Calvary in battle with. In Vietnam. He actually was one of the rare civilians decorated with the Bronze Star for valor during a battle. He was like, no, this is unforgivable."

Despite these criticisms, high-ranking officials like Kennedy and Johnson supported the initiative, reflecting the era’s socio-political climate which favored such military expansions.

Interestingly, Robert McNamara, despite his eventual reflections and apologies for other aspects of the Vietnam War, never publicly apologized for Project 100,000. This omission raises questions about his commitment to addressing the program’s ethical and human cost.

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Personal Stories and Anecdotes

Amidst the predominantly grim narrative, the hosts share rare positive accounts, highlighting individual resilience and compassionate leadership within the military. One such story is that of Mike Sanchez (a pseudonym), who received support from commanding officers that likely saved his life and fostered loyalty despite systemic failures.

Jerry [34:28]: "Mike Sanchez was the kind of guy who just. If you were nice to him, if you were kind to him, if you treated him with respect, he was loyal to you to the end."

Another recruit, referred to as Elmer, found purpose in maintaining a sick bay, demonstrating that with appropriate roles, some Project 100,000 soldiers could contribute meaningfully without being placed directly in harm's way.

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Conclusion

"Shameful History: Project 100,000" serves as a poignant reminder of the ethical compromises made during wartime and their long-term repercussions on vulnerable populations. Josh Clark and Jerry adeptly uncover the layers of this dark episode, emphasizing the need for historical awareness and accountability to prevent such injustices in the future.

The episode not only chronicles the systemic failures of Project 100,000 but also humanizes the statistics through personal stories, fostering a deeper understanding of the program's impact on individual lives and broader society.

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Notable Quotes:

• Josh Clark [02:03]: "Another name of it was McNamara's morons, from Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. But that name is awful, so I'd love to not use it again."

• Josh Clark [09:14]: "We're taking people out of abject poverty, giving them a chance to have a life for themselves and provide a stable home for their children, who can then go on to become middle class and so on and so forth."

• Jerry [23:40]: "And they were like, you know, guys, before we go into our next war, which we should do pretty soon, we need to, like, have a real plan in place for this and get the manpower we need the right way."

• Josh Clark [27:04]: "5,478 of them were killed in Vietnam, which was a fatality rate three times higher than your average soldier."

• Josh Clark [39:16]: "The veterans had worse financial outcomes. There was a study in the 80s that found that 10% of low IQ veterans were unemployed, compared with only 3% of low IQ, non-veterans, and earned less money, an average of $18,000 a year, compared to $24,000 a year for non-veterans."

---

This episode is a stark exploration of Project 100,000, urging listeners to reflect on the moral implications of military policies and their enduring effects on society. By bringing these historical injustices to light, Stuff You Should Know fosters a critical understanding of how intent and execution can diverge, often with tragic outcomes.

Transcript

[Josh Clark]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Dexter Thomas]

Are there any pictures of you online? Then you could already be in a massive police database without even knowing it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Clearview scrapes together images from Facebook, from LinkedIn, from Venmo accounts.

[Dexter Thomas]

I'm Dexter Thomas, host of Kill Switch, a podcast about how living in the future is affecting us right now.

[Chuck Bryant]

Police, they are trusting the software with this magical ability to lead them to the right suspect.

[Dexter Thomas]

In this episode, we dive into how cops are using AI and facial recognition and some sometimes getting it wrong and putting innocent people behind bars.

[Chuck Bryant]

So if your accuser is this algorithm, but you're not even being told that it was used, let alone given any of the details about how it works.

[Dexter Thomas]

Listen to Kill Switch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Benedict Townsend]

Do you remember Vine? It changed the Internet forever, and it vanished in its prime. I'm Benedict Townsend, and this is Vine. Six seconds that changed the world. The untold story of genius Betraya, and the app that died so that TikTok could thrive from overnight stars to the fall that no one saw coming. We're breaking down what made vine iconic. Listen to vine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Josh Clark]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Jerry]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here. And this is stuff you should know with a happy, fun, upbeat edition of Stuff you should know.

[Josh Clark]

Another entry in the shameful American History bucket. Do want to thank a listener for this idea, by the way? This came from David Bryant. No relation.

[Jerry]

Are you sure?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I don't have any. The only David in my family is my cousin, and he is a Mills.

[Jerry]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

But specifically, David Bryant's mom, I believe, gave David this idea, or asked David if those boys ever did a Show on Project 100,000. And we also should shout out a writer, Hamilton Gregory, who was a Vietnam vet and journalist and who wrote a book, McNamaras volley the use of low IQ troops in the Vietnam War, which I guess sort of gives away what we're talking about.

[Jerry]

Yeah, because the name of the project, Project 100,000, certainly doesn't.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I mean, another name of it was McNamara's morons, from Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. But that name is awful, so I'd love to not use it again.

[Jerry]

Yeah, it's ridiculously derogatory. Even when this was going on in the mid-60s to the very early 70s, it was still quite derogatory. It hadn't been, like, a medical term since, like, the nineteen teens. So it was just mean all around. And that's pretty appropriate because this whole idea, this project, which was a wartime effort to essentially lower the standards for military recruitment so that people with low enough IQs that they were either borderline or mildly cognitively challenged would be acceptable into military service. And it depends on who you ask, what the purpose was. We'll go into both of them.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Jerry]

But for the most part, it seems like it probably was as bad as it seems on its face that it wasn't an actual good idea ever among anybody.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I mean, that's a great setup for a change for us. You know, usually people are like, what is this even you're talking about?

[Jerry]

Yeah. And how'd you guys confuse me already? We're only in minute two.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So I guess we'll just dive right in. I mentioned Robert McNamara, who was during the Vietnam War, was the Secretary of Defense. And this was an idea that wasn't something that he just thought of. Then we'll get into it. But he had thought of this idea previously. But it was also something the US Military had faced previously when it came wartime. And they found out that, like, hey, we had a real problem with not having enough soldiers. We really overestimated how many, like, you know, fit, literate men were qualified to serve. Because this is what's. What a time when it was. I mean, was it exclusively men?

[Jerry]

Yeah. World War II, for sure. @ least for combat roles. I think there were other roles for women, but as far as combat's concerned, yes, definitely.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And so they. And that was also the first war, which is one reason they had this shortage. That. The first war that they had these really kind of big leaps forward in technology with, you know, weaponry and communications to where they had specialists that, you know, the brightest of the bright that did that stuff.

[Jerry]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And everyone else is in combat. So once they had the specialists assigned, they were like, hey, we don't have enough, like, frontline dudes.

[Jerry]

No. So they had a choice. They could either say, some of you specialists, we may have assigned you to radar duty too hastily. We need you to be on the front lines because we don't have enough combat soldiers. Or they could lower their standards to allow more people into the army or infantry. So they would automatically be combat soldiers.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And one guy said, but my name is Radar.

[Jerry]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And he said, well, just get over to the MASH unit then.

[Jerry]

Yeah, man, that show was not funny to me.

[Josh Clark]

Is this the first time I'm hearing this.

[Jerry]

I don't know, maybe you're not a MASH fan. No.

[Josh Clark]

I thought you loved mash.

[Jerry]

No, I remember like hanging out with my dad while he watched it and he would like laugh and clap and everything and I'd be like, this is not funny. And then I grew up and I'm still like, this is not funny.

[Josh Clark]

Wow. That's funny because the other day, RIP Loretta Swit, who just passed away. Hot la Toolahan. I was remarking on Pollock Tompkins Instagram page. Cause he did a little tribute to her that it's like, it's so funny for me to think back of being like a 12 year old kid watching a movie about alcoholic surgeons in the Korean War on Thursdays, five times a day, every other day of the week, four times a day. I ate it up. I thought it was the best thing ever.

[Jerry]

Well, I liked the movie.

[Josh Clark]

Interesting.

[Jerry]

Why do you dislike the movie but like the show?

[Josh Clark]

No, I mean, the movie is the great Robert Altman, so I certainly love it. But I just think it's interesting. Yeah. I thought you were a MASH guy. I never knew.

[Jerry]

I mean, once they got rid of Trapper John, I was like, I'm done with even giving this a chance.

[Josh Clark]

But this is what I like about our friendship is we're still learning about each other after all these years.

[Jerry]

Yeah. And we can still get along despite our views on mash.

[Josh Clark]

This is going to take me a minute, but it'll be fine.

[Jerry]

So we left off basically before this little tangent that the army had a decision. Either lower their standards to allow more combat troops in or get some of those specialists off to the front lines. And they're like, we'll just go ahead and lower our standards.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And they did that. They lowered the intelligence standards and they were pretty surprised. They were like, wow, a lot of you guys maybe are illiterate and can't read. Maybe you can't understand basic orders even. We knew, obviously this is in the 1940s. We knew so much less about mental challenges and different intelligences and learning disabilities. And like you were either this or you were that back then. And so all of a sudden they said, oh, well, we got a lot of that. And we thought it would be a little more like guys like this.

[Jerry]

Right. So I think they, they managed to get 350,000 men at least. They kind of opened the floodgates during World War II. This is just between 42 and 45. But the caveat to this is that the military provided remedial Education classes, like, you would sign up for three years, they would teach you. They'd spend some of this time teaching you what you didn't learn in high school, because maybe you dropped out or maybe your high school sucke. Maybe you had to work in the fields half of the day so you didn't get a full education. The army educated them to bring them up to the level that their former standards met, Right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Or tried to, at least.

[Jerry]

Yeah, they did their best. And then after World War II ended and Hitler was dead, dead, dead, the army was like, well, the military in general said, we're going to re. Raise our standards back to where they were before.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, exactly. And then they needed to make the movie M.A.S.H. and then later the TV show. So they started the Korean War.

[Jerry]

Well, wait, the Rosenbergs started the Korean War, don't forget.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. No, the Korean War came along, and they had the same problem, of course. So they lowered the standards again, of course. And there was another scramble to kind of get ready. And so they were like, you know, guys, before we go into our next war, which we should do pretty soon, we need to, like, have a real plan in place for this and get the manpower we need the right way. And so part of that led into what? Led to Project 100,000.

[Jerry]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

That wasn't all, though.

[Jerry]

No, that wasn't all. There was this. I don't know how much faith to put in this, so let's just present it as if it's real, and we'll let the listeners decide.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Jerry]

But there is a senator that named Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He was a longtime sitting senator for New York. Prior to that, in the era that we're talking about, he was Assistant Secretary of Labor under both Kennedy and lbj. He was actually one of the architects of the war on Poverty. And I don't know if it was his idea or he just really bought into this idea, but it was that there's a bunch of people who aren't fit for military service, either because they're overweight or underweight or because they're not intelligent enough to pass the basic intelligence standards. I think he found, like, 30% of American men weren't fit for military service because of those standards. So he said, okay, rather than, like, go back to the beginning and try to fix the educational system, let's just get these people into the army and let the army kind of, like, polish them up so that once they're done with their hitch, they can become productive members of society. And Even better. We're taking people out of, like, abject poverty, giving them a chance to have, like, a life for themselves and provide a stable. A stable home for their children, who can then go on to become middle class and so on and so forth, and the cycle of poverty will be broken. That's what Daniel Patrick Moynihan was saying.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And he had a lot of people on his side. It wasn't some hugely controversial thing to propose. It was at a time when it was like, you know, you got a kid who's a problem, send them into the army and they'll shape you up into a real man and a productive member of society. It was kind of the way of thinking at the time. So much so that John F Kennedy and Lyndon Maines Johnson, they were big time believers in this. They were both, like, fully, fully on board. So we just want to make that clear. It wasn't just one or two people making these decisions. And there were presidents going, I don't know about that. That doesn't sound like the best idea.

[Jerry]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

We will kind of hit some early critics, because there were some. But people were kind of steaming ahead, you know, full steam ahead with this. Steaming ahead. Full steam ahead.

[Jerry]

That's really steamy.

[Josh Clark]

That's full steam.

[Jerry]

Yeah. Kennedy said in 1963. Today's military rejects include tomorrow's or hardcore unemployed.

[Josh Clark]

You know, it's funny, I have, er, written down on my thing.

[Jerry]

Do you really?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Jerry]

That was the worst Kennedy anyone's ever done. But that was my best.

[Josh Clark]

I know we're all frightened and horny and the lbj, for his part. Can I do lbj?

[Jerry]

Yeah, please do.

[Josh Clark]

He was a country guy, right?

[Jerry]

Texan.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yeah. We'll teach him to get up at daylight and work till dark and shave and bathe. And when we turn them out, we'll have them prepared at least to drive a truck or a bakery wagon or stand at a gate.

[Jerry]

Mm. That was more a gentleman dressed in a seersucker suit at the Kentucky Derby, I think.

[Josh Clark]

All right. Either way, LBJ did that.

[Jerry]

Hey, it was better than Mike Kennedy. How about that?

[Josh Clark]

It was fine.

[Jerry]

So you mentioned that we were going to kind of run into some of the critics early to this idea. And the first vocal critics were the military leaders themselves. They were like, this is. No, we don't want to do this. We. We're not. The Army's not to rehabilitate and educate people who got left behind in school. Do something else with them. There were other people who were like, yeah, there's this thing called Job Corps. Have you heard of Job Corps? That's what that's for. Don't send them to the military. So it wasn't like a home run once it left the Oval Office and started to spread outward on Capitol Hill.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. But that's where it did go. Because in 1966 is when Robert McNamara formally announced Project 100,000. But this was, like I mentioned, not only the US military tried to do this before, but McNamara himself had tried this before. Two years earlier in 64, he proposed something called the Special Training Enlistment program or the STEP program. And this was not full project 100,000. It was a little more like, hey, we got a like 40,000 guys that didn't meet the standards, but they're super close. Maybe they're just below the IQ test level or maybe they need to put on a few pounds or shave a few pounds. And this STEP program was intended to kind of correct those guys up quickly into getting on board. But it would cost a little bit of money. They would enlist for three years, receive this special training. And that special training was going to cost about 16 million bucks. So Congress said, no, we're not going to pay for that.

[Jerry]

No. And one other thing you kind of mentioned it is that they were going to get remedial instruction like the soldiers in World War II got. Right. That was part of the program.

[Josh Clark]

That was what the 16 million was for.

[Jerry]

Okay. So Congress said, no, like you said, and McNamara is like, okay, whatever, I'm just going to move on. I have other things to do right now, like agitate for escalation in Vietnam. And in 1966, apparently he was chatting with some Marines and they made mention that they had actually set up their own little special training program so that the recruits who weren't cutting it or hacking it could be kind of like brought up to minimum standards themselves. And he had a Eureka lightbulb moment, basically saying, like, I'm going to steal that idea and make it military wide. And that way Congress doesn't have to have their greedy little fingers in it because I can just use the regular training budget for this kind of thing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And they can. You know, those Marines had their private piles that they got up to speed and turned them into killing machines. Just like in the movie.

[Jerry]

Yeah. I mean, Private Pile is based on this project 100,000 we're about to talk about, like a hundred percent.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And I feel like Forrest Gump has gotta be inspired by this, even though that was never a part of the movie that at least made it into the movie. I don't know about original script, if he had any kind of special training.

[Jerry]

Or anything, I don't know. Or the book by Winston Groom. It's possible that he ran across that in the research. But not just Force, but Bubba as well.

[Josh Clark]

Oh yeah, good point.

[Jerry]

So I say we take a break and come back and talk about how Project 100,000 actually kind of made it.

[Josh Clark]

Let's do.

[Chuck Bryant]

This.

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[Dexter Thomas]

Are there any pictures of you online? I'm not just talking about Google, I'm talking anywhere.

[Chuck Bryant]

Clearview scrapes together images from Facebook, from LinkedIn, from Venmo accounts.

[Dexter Thomas]

That database is now being used by police departments all across the country to match criminal suspect photos. And sometimes it makes mistakes.

[Chuck Bryant]

So in this one case, two of their search results that I think were in the top 10 of the search results were Michael Jordan, A picture of Michael Jordan.

[Dexter Thomas]

But cops are still using it to make arrests.

[Chuck Bryant]

Police, they are trusting this software to lead them to the right suspect. But you're not even being told that it was used, let alone given any of the details about how it works.

[Dexter Thomas]

This is not Minority Report. This is happening right now. People are getting arrested and doing actual time in jail after being picked out by a computer. I'm Dexter Thomas, host of Kill Switch, where every Wednesday we explain the right now of living in the future. You can turn off the computer, but do not let the computer turn you off. Listen to Kill switch in the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Benedict Townsend]

Do you remember Vine? It changed the Internet forever and it vanished in its prime. I'm Benedict Townsend, and this is Vine. Six seconds that changed the world. The untold story of genius, betrayal, and the app that died so that TikTok could thrive from overnight stars to the fall that no one saw coming. We're breaking down what made vine iconic. Listen to vine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcast.

[Josh Clark]

All right, so where we left off is McNamara found a workaround from the official step program to basically an unofficial step program. And in 1966, they found that they really needed this because they had a pretty dire manpower situation. Because. Well, one reason is because of the incredible amount of deferments. I saw some stats that from draft eligible men in 1966, 60% of them took some sort of action to gain a deferment. A lot of them rushed off to get married because initially there was a marriage deferment. A lot of them went to college that maybe weren't too keen on it because there was a college deferment. There were medical deferments. There were certainly wealthy kids who had their parents pay their way out of the war with things like medical deferments. There were conscientious objector deferments, like 170,000 of those people having kids. They sort of started moving the goalpost a little bit with the marriage and kids thing, because at first it was like, if you're married, you're not going, but then they're like, actually, we need to marry you guys, maybe if you just don't have kids. So guys started having kids. So long way of saying they needed infantrymen on the front line. Another way to avoid it was obviously joining something like the National Guard or the Coast Guard.

[Jerry]

Yeah. Because then you could be like, I'm the. The Coast Guard is almost certainly not going to Vietnam. I'll join the Coast Guard so I can serve and help out, but I'm not going to be shipped off to Vietnam. Some people also just fled the country, went to Canada. Sweden was another place where what are called draft dodgers ran off to.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Jerry]

So, yeah, there were a lot of people, particularly middle class and higher, who were just basically not having to go fight in Vietnam. Right.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Jerry]

And the other reason why they needed people, or the basic reason why they needed a bunch of people all of a sudden, or fighting men, I should say, on the front lines is because in 1966, the US sent combat troops to the ground in Vietnam. In South Vietnam. To that point, the US had been nothing but advisors and trainers. And then there was the Gulf of Tonkin incident, where a Navy ship was fired upon. That kind of brought the US into the war. And we started, like, doing firebombing raids. And then finally they were like, we need infantry men. And that's when they really needed a bunch of people to go fight in Vietnam. And that's when Project 100,000 was like, yeah, let's. Let's do this, because we need to.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And I mean, I didn't even look it up, I imagine. Were they trying to get 100,000 soldiers? Was that that number per year? Oh, per year. Okay. Because they ended up getting far more than that.

[Jerry]

They did.

[Josh Clark]

They were officially active with this project from 10-1-66 through the end of the year 71, so about five years. And there were early critics of this official program as well. And a lot of them kind of make sense, but a lot of them early on were civil rights leaders. There was a congressman named Adam Clayton Powell who said, this is genocide for poor black Americans. It's nothing more than killing off human beings that are not members of the elite. But nevertheless, they pushed on.

[Jerry]

Yeah. I mean, the very fact that these men came from high levels of poverty and had learning disabilities in a lot of cases meant that they were not going to get any kind of college deferment. They were almost certainly not in college. And even if they were, they weren't doing a good enough job to get a deferment. And then secondly, National Guards almost to a state were still segregated. So if you were black, you couldn't go join the National Guard and not be shipped off to Vietnam. So these were a really vulnerable population of people that they tapped into with Project 100,000.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And they called these guys new Standards recruits. Capital N, capital S. And most of those New standards guys were sent to Vietnam. Out of those guys, about half of them served in combat roles. And this is what that looked like.

[Jerry]

Yeah. I think there were a total of 354,000 men who were admitted in that time. 91% hadn't met the previous minimum IQ requirements. And the median score on the Armed Forces Qualification Test, which measured intelligence among other things, was 13.6, which meant that the new standards men had an IQ average around 75, whereas for all recruits, the average was IQ of about 100. And that's the average IQ. I saw that 70 is the cutoff, the beginning of mild cognitive disabilities. So if 75 is the average. That means there are people with real cognitive disabilities who were in this 354,000 men who were part of Project 100,000.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. 48% of those guys were from the south, compared to 28% of the total recruits. And 38% were non white, when minorities at the time made up just about 10% overall.

[Jerry]

Right. So you can imagine that these, these men who didn't meet the minimum requirements that had previously been met, some of them couldn't even meet these new lowered requirements. And so recruiters stepped in and did some really shady stuff to get people into this project 100,000. Shoot.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, recruiters. I mean, they can say whatever they want because they're not, you know, you can't go back and say, oh, well, my recruiter said I wasn't supposed to go to the front line. That just doesn't fly. So they could say whatever they want. They could say, you're not going to go to the front line. Maybe you won't even go to Vietnam. You may be, you know, you're going to get really great job training and set you up great for later in life after you get out of the Army. Their job is to recruit you, not to be held to anything that they.

[Jerry]

Say that's so wrong, man. Especially when you're dealing with people with cognitive disabilities, you know, for sure. Especially people who are illiterate. And some of them were illiterate. So the recruiters would bring in ringers, people they paid to take the tests for the qualification tests for these, these men who were the new standards men. And they. That, I mean, that's just fraud, you know.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. They were, you know, once they got to basic training, they were bullied. They were obviously the object of ire from their drill sergeants and stuff like that, but they were also bullied physically and emotionally within their platoons, and they didn't have any understanding a lot of times of even what was going on when this was happening.

[Jerry]

Yeah, that writer, Hamilton Gregory, recounted the story of one recruit who couldn't tell you what state he was from, didn't know his left from his right, wasn't aware that the US Was at war. I mean, like, really profoundly cognitively challenged men in some cases who had no business being in the military. Not just because they were potentially in danger or most certainly in danger in a lot of cases, but they also posed a danger to other people in their platoon as well, because they didn't know what they were doing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. They did have those special training Companies set up like, you know, McNamara had envisioned, you know, from the tip from those Marines. But a lot of times, you know, that didn't work. And even when they failed to get through basic training, they would just recycle them back through until they pass or just say you passed.

[Jerry]

Yeah, those recruiters also, they used something called administrative acceptance. That's what it was, where they were given the power to say, I think you're flunking this test on purpose so you're actually going to be admitted anyway. They could use that to, to assign or to get these cognitively challenged men into the army, basically saying, like, I think you're smarter than. Than your test reflects. Right. So there was just no way that they weren't going to make it into the Army. And then through basic training and I mean, once they. Once they got through basic training, I think you said half or more of them were shipped off to Vietnam, and I think the majority of them ended up on the front lines. And the statistics about what happened to these men in Vietnam are just shocking, especially when you compare them to the statistics for just the military or the army as a whole.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, 5,478 of them were killed in Vietnam, which was a fatality rate three times higher than your average soldier. 1300 of those were killed by mines in booby traps. Because a lot of times they were like, just put one of those guys up front and if they step on the landmine, then it's no big loss for us. Yeah, 20,000 of them were injured, including 500amputees, which is again, at a. At a higher rate than other GIs.

[Jerry]

Yeah, I think I saw like 50 something thousand people were killed. Americans were killed in Vietnam. So, like the new standards, men made up like 10% of that, which, I mean, that's just crazy. There are also, like a lot of horror stories about these poor guys and just the. What happened to them over there. There was one who Hamilton Gregory wrote about. He. He would change the names of these men, and he changed one of their names to Jerry. And Jerry was on night guard duty at his post in Vietnam. And he was told that if he saw anybody coming up to the fort that he was to say halt, and tell them to say who they were, to identify themselves. Right. And even this basic order, Jerry couldn't follow it because when he saw somebody moving in the jungle, he just started opening fire. And it turned out it was an officer from his camp, and he killed him. He accidentally killed this officer because he just started shooting because he didn't know how to follow orders.

[Josh Clark]

You know why guys like you and I aren't fit for the military?

[Jerry]

Why?

[Josh Clark]

Because you had a hard time coming up with the word order. Yeah, what, what's it called? What? That sarge yelling us about that thing he wants us to do?

[Jerry]

Yeah, the, the instruction, but like angry instruction.

[Josh Clark]

Angry instruction. I think that's the definition of orders. And angry instruction.

[Jerry]

I think so too.

[Josh Clark]

They also, and this is, you know, it gets even sadder, new standards men were referred for psychiatric evaluation 10 times as frequently as other troops. And you know, they were obviously going through a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression, extreme agitation. And some of them frequently attempted suicide or, you know, went AWOL or attacked their fellow soldiers, which all of a sudden you're in the stockade, you're getting a conviction and a dishonorable discharge, which we're going to talk more about in a minute.

[Jerry]

That was a big. A big issue. But I mean, I saw the AWOL thing described as like, I mean, imagine if everybody's really mean to you, beats you up, and you just don't understand why. Of course you're going to want to get away from it if you just can't make sense of that. Heads or tails, right? So awol. I mean, there was a pretty good reason for a lot of these guys to go awol. And again, I think Private Pyle's experience in basic training was like, pretty true to life for what happened to some of these guys. And you know, Private Pyle chose kill and then die himself rather than awol, but a lot of them chose AWOL instead.

[Josh Clark]

What a movie.

[Jerry]

Yeah, man, that movie is just amazing.

[Josh Clark]

We're talking about Full Metal Jacket, by the way, just in case people are like, what movie?

[Jerry]

Yeah. So good call, man.

[Josh Clark]

The great Stanley Kubrick. Should we take our second break?

[Jerry]

I think we should. Yes.

[Josh Clark]

All right, we'll be right back and finish up with Project 100,000.

[Naila Simone]

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[Dexter Thomas]

Are there any pictures of you online? I'm not just talking about Google. I'm talking anywhere.

[Chuck Bryant]

Clearview scrapes together images from Facebook, from LinkedIn, from Venmo accounts.

[Dexter Thomas]

That database is now being used by police departments all across the country to match criminal suspect photos. And sometimes it makes mistakes.

[Chuck Bryant]

So in this one case, two of their search results that I think were in the top 10 of the search results were Michael Jordan, a picture of Michael Jordan.

[Dexter Thomas]

But cops are still using it to make arrests.

[Chuck Bryant]

Police, they are trusting this software to lead them to the right suspect. But you're not even being told that it was used, let alone given in any of the details about how it works.

[Dexter Thomas]

This is not Minority Report. This is happening right now. People are getting arrested and doing actual time in jail after being picked out by a computer. I'm Dexter Thomas, host of Kill Switch, where every Wednesday we explain the right now of living in the future. You can turn off the computer, but do not let the computer turn you off. Listen to Kill switch in the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Benedict Townsend]

Do you remember Vine? It changed the Internet forever and it vanished in its prime. I'm Benedict Townsend and this is Vine. Six seconds that changed the world. The untold story of genius, betrayal, and the app that died so that TikTok could thrive. From overnight stars to the fall that no one saw coming. We're breaking down what made vine iconic. Listen to vine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcast.

[Jerry]

So I said there are a lot of horror stories and there are a plenty for the McNamara boys or Project 100,000 Men. What's much harder to find are positive stories, like hopeful stories. Um, I could find two, but it turned out they were actually the same guy.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. This isn't a silver lining situation.

[Jerry]

No, definitely not. But the guy, his name was Mike Sanchez, not his real name. And he had two different experiences while he was in Vietnam. And both of them were because he was essentially adopted by his commanding officers at both of his posts.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Which, I mean, that's still not a silver lining, but at least there were some compassionate officers who took these guys under their wing and were like, I'm going to try and see that this kid doesn't go home in a pine box. So thankful for that, obviously. But one of the things that happened was a soldier like this, and apparently it happened to others, is they were given assignments sort of under the wing of that officer, like, maybe be their driver. And in this case, this guy was assigned to drive an officer, but couldn't drive and didn't have the capacity to learn how to drive. So instead of just, you know, sticking it back on the front line, this officer drove himself and just had this guy sit next to him in the passenger seat.

[Jerry]

Yeah. So, I mean, like, that's really taking a soldier under your wing. Like, that is just straight up protecting him. That was after that was the second part of Mike Sanchez's stint in Vietnam. The first part of it, he actually distinguished himself in battle. And this is actually pretty similar to Forrest Gump, if you think about it.

[Josh Clark]

Well, I think this might have been directly inspired by that. That was my feeling.

[Jerry]

Okay, so Mike Sanchez, when he first got to Vietnam, his first commanding officer, also took him under his wing to protect him and was like, you have no business being here. I'm going to see to it that you make it out of here alive. And Mike Sanchez was the kind of guy who just. If you were nice to him, if you were kind to him, if you treated him with respect, he was loyal to you to the end, like, you just captured his heart. And that happened with this first commanding officer. He felt deeply loyal to them, and they ended up in a firefight together, Right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And kind of just like out of the movie Forrest Gump, the officer ended up in big trouble. Mike couldn't find him. Everyone said, he's back there. He got hit, but no one was going back to get him. So that's what this guy did. He ran back, foregoing his own safety, called out for him, found him wounded. He couldn't move, and carried him to safety through some serious bullet fire and got the Silver Star for that action.

[Jerry]

Yeah. Isn't that cool?

[Josh Clark]

It's pretty great.

[Jerry]

Yeah. Mike Sanchez is just one of those rare hopeful or nice stories. He actually went on to become a barber, which was his dream because his brother was a barber. So he got to go work with him after the Army.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And again, don't bother Googling, because his name is not Mike Sanchez.

[Jerry]

No. But you can find an account of this by the second CEO who he was the driver for. His name was Jim Bracewell. He wrote an account about Mike Sanchez. It's worth reading for sure.

[Josh Clark]

There was another one. This is from Dave Ruse. One of these guys, his name was Elmer. I don't know if that's his real name or not in this case, but he was apparently just a real. Had a real talent for keeping things super clean and orderly. And he was assigned. His assignment was to clean a sick bay on a big Navy ship. And he may not have understood, like, what sterile meant and things like that, but he really knew how to get stuff done and keep the place clean and sterile. And he apparently was. Had a pretty rare positive experience and that everyone loved this guy and everyone thought he did a great job. And that's sort of like, that's sort of what I was thinking earlier is, you know, they, they knew so little about different intelligences and things back then, and they probably could have found a lot of roles that might have been suitable for some of these guys. Instead they were just like, we want warm bodies on the front line because they're basically expendable.

[Jerry]

Yeah, I mean, like basically booby trap catchers, essentially.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Jerry]

So, yeah, those, those stories are very rare. For the most part, the project 100,000 recruits suffered greatly, not just in battle, but also at the hands of their own platoon members. Like, they just had it horrible all around in a lot of cases. And so it's not much of a surprise that when they were studied after they left Vietnam and came back to the United States, they had a much harder time than even the average Vietnam vet who had a hard time themselves. These guys had it even harder. They were apparently significantly more likely to suffer PTSD compared to other vets, and that they had harder time holding on a job, they had a harder time with everyday living, and that they were more likely to experience homelessness, drug addiction and suicide than even the average Vietnam vet.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, which, you know, the, the, the big thumb in the eye in all this is. It was kind of posed as no, these guys are going to be so much better off after serving their country in the army.

[Jerry]

Yep.

[Josh Clark]

They're going to get better jobs. They're going to, you know, work themselves up into a maybe lower middle class situation when they came from poverty in a lot of cases. And they've studied this. Even when compared to other low IQ Americans of the same age.

[Jerry]

Yeah, this is big.

[Josh Clark]

The veterans had worse financial outcomes. There was a study in the 80s that found that 10% of low IQ veterans were unemployed, compared with only 3% of low IQ, non veterans, and earned less money, an average of $18,000 a year, compared to $24,000 a year for non veterans.

[Jerry]

Yes. And so, again, just to. Just to clarify, they were supposed to have a better life, like you said, after the war, and they had a worse life. And one reason, a huge reason why, is something you touched on earlier. A lot of them, I think something like half of them were discharged under conditions other than honorable. And if you have anything but an honorable discharge from the military, you are stigmatized for the rest of your life. Not only will businesses typically not hire you, there's plenty of businesses who won't. The military itself, like the VA will help you less than it will help other vets. Like, it's harder to get access to health care and to job counseling and to all the things that somebody like a project 100,000 recruit would need after they got back to America that was shut down to half of them because they were discharged dishonorably.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I mean, it's just so shameful. There was at least one guy, there was a recruiter who, I guess, felt pretty bad about taking part in this. It was a veteran named Bill Daniel. And he put a lot of thought into this after the war and said, you know what? I'm gonna. They called it bad paper if you got a dishonorable discharge. And so he wanted to appeal as many of these bad paper discharges as he could, and he was successful in 400 cases. You know, 180,000 of them were dishonorably discharged. So 400 isn't much. But, you know, this for Bill Daniel to take, you know, to spend his time and his life getting 400 of these guys cleared is pretty admirable.

[Jerry]

Yeah. And then one more thing about the bad paper, the dishonorable discharges. Apparently, among Project 100,000 recruits, the main reason that was given for their dishonorable discharge was that they were unsuitable for the military. And that was the case from the outset. The military brought them on on purpose anyway, and then spit them out the other end, saying, you should have never been in the military in the first place. And now here's the stigma for you to carry around for the rest of your life.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, man. So did Robert McNamara feel bad about all this? Because he's certainly somebody who, maybe more so than most secretaries of Defense, looked back a lot on his life, and he wrote about it, and there was a memoir called In Retrospect the Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. He also very Famously was in the great Errol Morris's documentary the Fog of War, where he talked at length about things that he did right and wrong. So surely he looked back on Project 100,000 as a big mistake, right?

[Jerry]

No, no. I could tell by your tone that you knew that, but he didn't. He actually did apologize for things like his involvement in pushing for escalating the war in Vietnam. Like, he wasn't one of those guys. He's like, nope, I never did anything wrong. You're all wrong. He soul searched, like you said, more than most other people in his position, but he never apologized for Project 100,000. And I don't know what that says on, like, on its face, you would suspect. Well, he really was a true believer. He didn't think it was a. Like, he. He wasn't doing anything nefarious. But, I mean, these guys who were, like, planning and carrying out the Vietnam War, you had to be nefarious to be doing that, you know? So how much credit can you give him? How much. How much benefit of the doubt do you give him?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, the vet that wrote that book, Hamilton Gregory, he himself was like, yeah, you know what? I think he actually had good intentions. I think he really did think he could coach them up into a better life and that the military would be genuinely good for them and that it was just a tragic misjudgment and not just a attempt to supply the front lines with warm bodies, but maybe generous, I don't know.

[Jerry]

Yeah. Other people, like the guy who wrote We Were Soldiers, Joe Galloway, he was embedded with the seventh Calvary in battle with. In Vietnam. He actually was one of the rare civilians decorated with the Bronze Star for valor during a battle. He was just a war correspondent, and he was like, no, this is unforgivable. He essentially said in a column the day after McNamara died, like, just from Project 100,000, he's on his way to hell, basically.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. I mean, that's what he said. Not. I'm not saying he's on his way to hell.

[Jerry]

Right. Yeah, and I'm paraphrasing, too, but that's. That's basically what he said.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Jerry]

And I think a lot of people agree with him for that, too. You got anything else?

[Josh Clark]

I got nothing else. Looking forward to moving on to more positive stories.

[Jerry]

Yeah. Who was the person that suggested it?

[Josh Clark]

David Bryant's mom.

[Jerry]

Thanks. David Bryant's mom. We appreciate that that was a good idea. I'm glad we learned about it. I'm glad we could tell everybody else about it because it's not a very well known part of American history.

[Josh Clark]

Totally.

[Jerry]

Chuck said totally. He just triggered listener mail.

[Josh Clark]

This is about our shorty. Can you not have a name? Hi guys. My second time emailing just listened to can you not have a name? And had to email about a most unusual name I've come across in my 50 plus years of working with the public. 30 in the restaurant industry, 16 doing vacation rentals, and now 4 1/2 years owning a flower shop.

[Jerry]

Nice.

[Josh Clark]

About 7 or 8 years ago, a customer came in of Asian descent and gave me his credit card that showed me his surname as yy. I commented, I said, what an unusual last name. And he asked if he was if it was a common Asian name. And he said, actually my last name is only Y, but American Express does not accept a last name composed of just one letter, so I had to add the second Y just to get the credit card. Also, my sister and I are both baby boomers and we were not given middle names so we could take our maiden name as our middle name once we got married and not have to drop that middle name.

[Jerry]

Oh, I never thought about that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it worked for my sister, but I'm still single and looking for a man with a short last name.

[Jerry]

What's her name?

[Josh Clark]

So this is Jane Trahanovsky, who is the owner of Lavon's Florals in Newport, Newport Beach, California. And I even went to the website. Looks like a lovely flower shop business. And so, you know, pop in and see Jane, if you, if you're a boomer with a short last name.

[Jerry]

Yeah, you could do a lot worse than going to Newport beach for a day or two.

[Josh Clark]

Totally.

[Jerry]

Well, thanks a lot, Jane. We appreciate that. We love anecdotes and stories about stuff that have to do with episodes we've recently recorded. And if you have one of those, you can talk to us via email. Send it off to Stuff. Podcastheartradio.com.

[Josh Clark]

Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Dexter Thomas]

Are there any pictures of you online? Then you could already be in a massive police database without even knowing it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Clearview scrapes together images from Facebook, from LinkedIn, from Venmo accounts.

[Dexter Thomas]

I'm Dexter Thomas, host of Kill Switch, a podcast about how living in the future is affecting us right now.

[Chuck Bryant]

Police. They are trusting the software with this magical ability to lead them to the.

[Dexter Thomas]

Right suspect in this episode, we dive into how cops are using AI and facial recognition and sometimes getting it wrong and putting innocent people behind bars.

[Chuck Bryant]

So if your accuser is this algorithm, but you're not even being told that it was used, let alone given any of the details about how it works.

[Dexter Thomas]

Listen to Kill Switch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Benedict Townsend]

Do you remember Vine? It changed the Internet forever and it vanished in its prime. I'm Benedict Townsend, and this is Vine. Six seconds that changed the world World. The untold story of genius, betrayal, and the app that died so that TikTok could thrive. From overnight stars to the fall that no one saw coming, we're breaking down what made vine iconic. Listen to vine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Josh Clark]

I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden.

[Jerry]

Years of hip hop.

[Hamilton Gregory]

It's Black Music Month, and we need the talk. It's time. Tapping in. I'm Naila Simone. Breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shapes the soundtrack of our lives.

[Josh Clark]

Like, that's what's really important and that's what stands out, is that our music changes people's lives for the better.

[Hamilton Gregory]

Let's talk about the music that moves us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide. Listen to we need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Josh Clark]

This is an iHeart podcast.