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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

11. Unsurprisingly, “The Moron Corps” Suffered Heavy Casualties During the Vietnam War

American troops in Vietnam. Rolling Stone

It goes without saying that the mentally and physically unfit young men recruited by Project 100,000 were not taught the valuable skills the program claimed they would be taught. The Pentagon simply saw the scheme as a solution to its manpower shortage, not as a social service. Once they signed on the dotted line, “the Moron Corps”, as the Project 100,000 recruits were derisively called by other soldiers, were rushed through training, then bundled off 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 them to be rejected by the draft in the first place ensured that they were wounded and killed in disproportionate numbers. The toll fell particularly heavily on unfit black youths: 41 percent of Project 100,000’s recruits were black, compared to 12 percent in the US military as a whole.

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.