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Odd Solutions to Historic Problems

Khalid Elhassan December 9, 2020 32 min

United States - American Civil War — Young recruits during the Vietnam War, circa 1967. History

14. “The Moron Corps”: The Pentagon’s Solution to a Manpower Shortage During the Vietnam War

American troops in Vietnam, circa 1966. WESA

When America got involved in Vietnam, it mired itself in a quagmire. By 1966, the country was getting sucked ever deeper into that quagmire. When President Lyndon B. Johnson assumed office following JFK’s assassination in 1963, America had 16,000 troops in Vietnam. The following year, the figure grew slightly to 23,000. In 1965, however, in response to requests from American commanders in Vietnam for ever more US troops, the figure mushroomed to 185,000. It would more than double again in 1966, to 385,000.

The Vietnam War’s insatiable demand for ever more American troops put the LBJ administration in a bind: where to get them, without risking a public backlash? The solution was to turn to an immoral recruitment scheme: a program for enlisting otherwise unfit soldiers, whom the rest of the US military referred to derisively as “The Moron Corps”.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.