—” In my years I have seen very few that survived 4 years let alone prospered.”
Project 100,000
Entrance requirements were loosened, but all the Project 100,000 men were sent through normal training programs with other recruits, and performance standards thus were the same for everyone.[10] The US Army received 71% of recruits, followed by 10% by the Marines, 10% by the Navy, and 9% by the Air Force.[1]
Project 100,000 soldiers included those unable to speak English, those who had low mental aptitude or minor physical impairments, and those who were slightly over- or underweight
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000
I served with one that the judge gave a choice; Join up or go to jail.
He found his wife with another and tossed the guy out the window. Of the fifth floor, Texas.
He would tell any and all, as we proceed through some hot dry valley...; “I should have taken jail”
An OK guy.
Project 100,000 was about the only real way to get people to get in at all and it helped the count but was not related exactly to the criminal court recommendations.
As I’m sure you remember the 60’s were plagued with misinformation about the problems in ‘Nam (or even the reason we went in), and with the information of the craziness and deaths there they couldn’t get any manpower to go. Guys like your entry displayed were not the ones you needed to depend on in a firefight or to accomplish tasks that were designed to keep you alive let alone safe.
Officially entrance requirements were loosened, but all the Project 100,000 men were sent through normal training programs with other recruits, and performance standards thus were the same for everyone. And if anyone buys that then they may want to look at the differences between mens’ and womens’ PFT requirements and call that equal, also. They were only equal to their capacity, not there accomplishments of minimum standards or even those of their job and expectation toward it. Same with the jail bird escapees only one group was incapable due to their mental levels and the other one was trying to stay out of jail.
So which one is worse, the one incapable of comprehending mistakes or the one that intentionally does them as a DGAS attitude putting in time? You can adjust for one over short lengths of time. The other one’s adjustment is planning for the criminal to do the worst scenario and not be trusted at all. Great choice wasn’t it?
wy69
While that project was geared to low income, low IQ and uneducated it pretty well took anything that walked.
I was in the 11th grade and a few of us did the usual weekend entertainment in '66, joyriding (in cars other than our own of course). Ended up in front of a juvenile court judge and was given the choice of the day for us hardened criminal teenage types. He did send me to a juvie holding center (called juvenile hall for some reason back then, it did not mimic study hall or any hall though) to grow up my last few tender young months and then loaded me up on an Army bus headed to basic training the day of my 17th birthday right after swearing in.
As noted, we were sent thru normal training programs, all integrated with younguns like me and the old men of 20 or so. Don't remember running across any non english speakers or IQ challenged. Physically challenged wise, basic weeded the unhealthy out pretty quickly.
Only thing I remember getting age related was a bit of ribbing of babyface, the youngun, junior etc., but that came from the guys, not from command. Pretty well a normal 3 year hitch from what I could see along with all the others.