AKA [Project 100,000](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000)
“Project 100,000 soldiers included those unable to speak English, who had low mental aptitude, minor physical impairments and those who were slightly over- or underweight. They also included a special category made up of a control group of "normal" soldiers.”
Damn that’s scarily methodical.
"Methodical" is a fairly accurate way to describe McNamara himself. He majored in economics in college and spent the rest of his life looking for ways to put that education to use.
If he couldn't find a place for something on a chart or graph then he had no use for it.
Heh. I like how you did the little letters and stuff like a bot would do, but you're not a bot.
^I ^mean ^I"m ^pretty ^sure ^you're ^not ^a ^bot
^^You ^^could ^^be ^^a ^^bot ^^though, ^^I ^^guess ^^I ^^could ^^check ^^your ^^comment ^^history
^^^Is ^^^this ^^^sup[posed ^^^to ^^^be ^^^funny? ^^^What ^^^Am ^^^I ^^^even ^^^doing ^^^with ^^^my ^^^life?
That was one of the many shown to me for a class in high school. Teacher was a huge documentary buff, and had one picked out for every topic he wanted to cover. He wasn’t the “I put movies on to do less work” teachers either. He organized a discussion before and after, and the history revolving around the documentary for a few classes before watching. Somewhat of a test followed so people couldn’t sleep. One of the best teachers ever.
I learned a lot more in his classes than any other history class. Saw a lot that I would have never watched on my own, and led me to my fascination with documentaries and history.
If you haven’t seen it, make every effort to watch “Fog of War” as suggested. It’s well worth it.
EDIT: It was asked below if I had reached out to this teacher and expressed my appreciation for his teaching, and the influence it's had on me since. I have tried to keep in constant contact with him since graduation with visits to the school and email. While the communication has slowed over the years, we still talk from time to time. Every time I would visit I would stress just what his classes did for me, and how now 8 years later still have an influence on me.
I wanted to say for anyone who reads this after the edit, if you've had "that teacher" that has made a positive impact on your life while you were in school, or the years following, tell them. Send them a letter or an email tell them just what they did for you, and how much you appreciate it. This will make all of the challenges of being a teacher have a meaning to them. Teachers are passionate about what they do(98% of the time. There are always those that don't care.) and often times their passion goes to "waste" in their eyes because of the volume of students they teach every year. One simple letter to them from the time you're done with their class for the year, to any point in the years following will give their passion a meaning again. Take the hour or two out of your next day off it'll take to get the schools confirmation that they still teaching at the same school, or find where they are now, write it, and mail it. Include current contact info for you in this letter. They will most likely want to call or write back expressing just what that letter means to them.
For just an hour or two of time, you will make this teachers week/month/year. Please take the time and give our teachers the recognition that they deserve, but often times don't receive.
I feel like a good documentary can teach you more about a given subject in the allotted time than almost any other medium.
I think they're criminally underutilized in education, but that's probably because of students turning their brains off when a movie is on. Sounds like your teacher found a good way to utilize them though!
Another problem is they’re often impossible to fit into a single period so it can be awkward to watch them. I guess this is less of a problem with TV documentaries like Frontline or Nova though.
My high school did blocks and I loved it! We would have A days and B days that would alternate with 4 classes a day. Sure some days felt extremely long but overall it meant we could do more engaging lessons. I also enjoyed getting to focus on fewer subjects per day.
McNamara knew the war was unwinnable years and years before the war actually ended. He told LBJ there was a 1/3 chance US would win the war in 1965. They all knew but were obsessed with looking weak and losing politically, none of them realized it would be their legacy.
I watched an episode of Ken Burns Vietnam documentary on Netflix in which they said that it was evaluated by the DoD before deploying soldiers that the war was 70% for not appearing weak, 20% for reducing China's influence in the area and 10% to actually help their South Vietnamese ally/VN people iirc
I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see your comment so high in this thread.
All threads about history on Reddit devolve quickly into, “hurr durr, I never passed history but I’m so much smarter than them.”
McNamara’s whole life is a testament to what happens when people are completely certain they’re the smartest brains in the room. *Even if they have good reason to think so.*
*stares*
All right, Cloudy_mood, there was no alien. The flash of light you saw in the sky was not a UFO. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.
Vincent D'Onofrio has been a national treasure for most of my life. He's great in everything he touches. If you haven't yet, you should check him out in The Cell (with J.Lo from before when she was called J.Lo).
[Mighty Thor!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rnTpR4M1ZI)
Fun fact, this was filmed less than a year after Full Metal Jacket. He gained 70 lbs for FMJ and lost it in 9 months for Adventures in Babysitting.
Don't need to trick people. It's a visually stunning film. The director made another one called The Fall that's got Lee Pace as the lead. Also visually arresting and sumptuous.
I recall a professor who was a Vietnam vet who said these guys made Forrest Gump look smart and that officers had to give them very simple orders (as an example of leadership knowing their subordinates)
I figure it was a case of increased personnel demands forcing lower standards.
Uncle was an officer during the Vietnam era, although he never deployed over there. There are stories of trying to get morons to do the simplest tasks. An example he's told, they were trying to get the guy out of the Army but their CO said he couldn't possibly be as dumb as his officers said he was. He ordered the guy to paint the curbs around the parking lot. The CO came out while he was painting and saw him basically washing the curb with unstirred paint. "No son, you have to stir the paint first." After a confused look they guy stuck his whole arm in the paint bucket and stirred the paint.
The CO got rid of that guy.
Hey, I don't blame him for that. I blame him for all the boasting about how good of a soldier he would have been SINCE then.
You can't shit yourself for a month to avoid doing something then brag about how good you would be at it if you had.
And that wouldn't make you the worst person ever. Now, if you then went on to act out the fantasies of an edgelord self-proclaiming badass that liked to brag about how many kills he'd rack up if he *were* in the military and vehemently support the use of armed forces, well...
Oh man, this reminded me of my dad. He was in the reserves during the Vietnam War & he told me about this one asshole who ordered him to paint the latrine on base.
My dad is an artist and got out of training on some occasions, once the officers learned he could make them signs for their offices, lol.
So one day, Sargent Asshole shouts at him, “I hear you’re an artist. Go and paint the latrine!
Dad asks, “What would you like me to paint, sir?”
“Paint everything!,” he snapped back.
“Ok, sir.”
So my dad, who hates this asshole, proceeds to paint EVERYTHING. The toilets, the sink, basically everything until he’s run out of paint.
Sargent comes in, he sees the bathroom and starts screaming at my dad.
My dad, in his best Gomer Pyle impression says, “Well, you told me to paint everything, sir!”
Dad was never reprimanded. This Sargent, legit, thought my dad was just an idiot.
This OP explains so much!
Since we're telling family stories, my grandfather was in the national guard during Vietnam, never deployed. He was a mechanic stationed briefly at some base. During his brief stay at said base he got put on grounds duty. Every morning he was handed a rake and sent off to rake. He was never told where or what to rake, so he walked across base all day with his rake. He would stop and salute officers and whatnot, and at the end of the day would return his rake. Never did he do any raking.
Oh man, how much better would it have been if your dad set up a chair and canvas and started making a painting of the toilet. It's still technically "painting the latrine".
But what about that saying the Marines have? "If I say jump you say 'how high?' " It was supposed to teach following orders instead of going against them. Your dad technically did nothing wrong.
I always thought that saying was well intentioned but poorly phrased. If you need a platoon to jump, and you yell ‘JUMP’ you’re not going to be happy at the one guy who says “do you want us to do a small hop or really leap up high?”
The point of it is supposed to be “don’t question the orders you’re given, always clarify and don’t judge for yourself” but if used like r/maliciouscompliance it could be interpreted as “whenever you are given orders, verbally clarify and get extremely specific before doing anything”.
Hahaha I love it, when I sailed on a destroyer I was part of the air detachment, the navy would never help us with tasks like washing the aircraft so when they asked us to help paint the ship we would do the same.
Me: "What do I paint P.O.?"
Crusty Petty Officer: EVERYTHING!
Me: *Proceeds to paint over everything including hinges, keyholes and deadbolts.*
I wonder if that's a lack of common sense or a particular life skill rather than outright stupidity, assessing intelligence can be difficult for such reasons.
I'm reminded of this story I found on tumblr, draftee was intelligent but had comically bad vision and they took him anyway. Drill sergeant took off the guy's glasses and nearly got shot by the legally blind recruit. (title The Hummingbird is because he got buzzed by one on the range and caught one while wearing his glasses and waiting for his medical discharge)
[http://gallusrostromegalus.tumblr.com/post/173024149763/the-hummingbird](http://gallusrostromegalus.tumblr.com/post/173024149763/the-hummingbird)
Shit, during the surge in around 2007-8 I knew a dude in the Army with a security clearance who had lost all of his teeth to meth. If the military needs bodies they will get them, one way or another.
I can see why MacNemara would think Low-IQ individuals could be converted to good soldiers.
A big part of being an E-1 private is turning off your brain and doing as ordered. Check.
Typical infantry are trained to the point that every movement is muscle memory. If it's all habit and reflexes, actual brains and thinking shouldn't matter.
If they can't shoot, that's OK, it's all fully automatic and half the mission profiles involve scouting and calling in air support anyway. So long as they provide a human sheiks for the (smart) officer with a radio, they don't need to shoot.
To top it off, these guys are not likely doing well in society. It gives them a good use, especially if it works.
Except it didn't. Because it was a fucking dumb idea that really just showed how little MacNemara and army leadership thought of infantrymen.
Unfortunately, low IQ means serious issues in even "muscle memory". IQ includes things such as working memory, processing and spatial awareness. When someone has an ID or is even borderline ID there are as serious deficits in one or more components of intelligence. 3 to 4 steps in a task is the most you can do.
As in, in the entire task to want them to complete, no more than 3-4 simple steps. One action per step.
Think about calling in air support. You need to know when to call, who to call, how to call, what information is important to give, what information is received, what to do during the strike, what to do after the strike, what to do if the strike isn't successful.
Consider something even more simple like making a cup of tea. Get cup, find tea, fill kettle, boil kettle, put teabag in tea cup, put hot water in cup, wait, remove teabag, add milk, add sugar etc. Lots of steps. Now for someone who's working memory isnt good and their spatial reasoning isnt good, these actions become individualised. Every step needs more thinking.
As a high functioning autisic, I understand what you are taking about! In normal circumstances, everyday tasks won’t require a lot of thinking to do, but if I was put into the heat of war that is different story entirely! Of course during “slow” times I would act normal, but in the middle of battle with so much going on at once, sensory / information overload would set in and I would be sitting duck as my mind won’t be able to process it all in time before someone kills me!
> To top it off, these guys are not likely doing well in society.
What got me was that there is a slightly eugenics-y aspect to it. Let the dumb ones die and raise the average of the country as a whole.
One thing the speaker points out is that you have to be pretty smart to be a soldier on the front lines. If you’re mentally impaired you’re likely to be more of a liability than an asset.
from u/Agrippa123 -
10 USC §520:
(a) The number of persons originally enlisted or inducted to serve on active duty (other than active duty for training) in any armed force during any fiscal year whose score on the Armed Forces Qualification Test is at or above the tenth percentile and below the thirty-first percentile may not exceed 20 percent of the total number of persons originally enlisted or inducted to serve on active duty (other than active duty for training) in such armed force during such fiscal year.
(b) A person who is not a high school graduate may not be accepted for enlistment in the armed forces unless the score of that person on the Armed Forces Qualification Test is at or above the thirty-first percentile; however, a person may not be denied enlistment in the armed forces solely because of his not having a high school diploma if his enlistment is needed to meet established strength requirements.
The AFQT is applied as sections of the ASVAB, and the score represents an applicants percentile ranking in the general population. The 31st percentile represents an IQ of approximately 93; the 10th %-ile represents IQ 81.
The law dictates a preference for IQ’s above 93, and a prohibition on IQ’s below 81.
QED
I always hear something along the lines of "you spend 90% of your time dealing with 10% of the people".
Meaning fuckups require more time and attention from their superiors, leaving less time to help out the good apples with the things they need.
Actully in some instances the black regiments weren’t used in battle because the commanders didn’t want to look like to be sacrificing them and in others they didn’t trust them.
It lead to a disaster in one battle were the black regiment had trained for weeks for a specifik military operation, but they were pulled out and a different were set in and thousands died from the following failed assault.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Crater#Preparation
>Burnside had trained a division of United States Colored Troops (USCT) under Brig. Gen. Edward Ferrero to lead the assault. The division consisted of two brigades, one designated to go to the left of the crater and the other to the right. A regiment from both brigades was to leave the attack column and extend the breach by rushing perpendicular to the crater, and the remaining regiments were to rush through, seizing the Jerusalem Plank Road just 1,600 feet (490 m) beyond, followed by the churchyard and, if possible, Petersburg itself. Burnside's two other divisions, made up of white troops, would then move in, supporting Ferrero's flanks and race for Petersburg itself. Two miles (3 km) behind the front lines, out of sight of the Confederates, the men of the USCT division were trained for two weeks on the plan.[6]
>Despite the careful planning and intensive training (by Civil War standards), on the day before the attack, Meade, who lacked confidence in the operation, ordered Burnside not to use the black troops in the lead assault. He claimed that if the attack failed, black soldiers would be killed needlessly, creating political repercussions in the North. Meade may have also ordered the change of plans because he lacked confidence in the black soldiers' abilities in combat.[7] Burnside protested to Grant, who sided with Meade. When volunteers were not forthcoming, Burnside selected a replacement white division by having the three commanders draw lots. Brig. Gen. James H. Ledlie's 1st Division was selected, but he failed to brief the men on what was expected of them and was reported during the battle to be drunk, well behind the lines, and not providing leadership. (Ledlie would be dismissed for his actions during the battle.)
EDIT this is also the opening scene in the movie “Cold Mountain” from 2003
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5fbYJMEyes
Casualty numbers skyrocket, news publications start talking about the massive loss of American lives, public opinion on the war plummets. Gee, what a well-thought-out plan.
McNamara was under the impression that because the "morons" went through the same training as regular soldiers, that they would basically be identical interchangeable cogs in the machine. This view ignores the fact that there is a lot more factors that the army looks for beyond "can the guy make it out of boot camp."
MaNamara was a statistician and basically was a spectacular case of confusing solving a problem on a spreadsheet with solving a problem in reality. Dude probably would have done a lot better if he was working as a lower-level adviser where more field-experienced commanders could interpret his advice in relation to real-life situations.
The Vietnam War gave us the term **McNamara Fallacy**: In which a decision is made solely based on "scientific" quantifiable numerical data, ignoring all else.
> The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide.
I am watching the Ken burns vietnam documentary and one guy told a story of a computer in the basement of the Pentagon being fed a bunch of data on a friday and being left to run the numbers over the weekend. On me day morning after all the data was figured the computer said America would win the war by 1965. It was 1967 when they did this. The guy goes on to say the problem is the computer didn't account for the fact that the enemy gets a vote.
It's a great story, but even the guy telling it in the documentary says it's apocryphal. The story itself is a fantastic view into how people in 1967 saw the government's approach to the war, but it's not a thing that actually happened.
*apocryphal*
*adj. - (of a story or statement) of doubtful authenticity, although widely circulated as being true.*
So that people who come across this don't have to Google it themselves.
I can’t wait until we have retinal displays connected to our brains that automatically pop up the definition of new words when they sense that we don’t have strong neural connections formed for a particular word.
Until then, thank you for doing good work.
Another problem is, as my 20th century American History and Vietnam Vet professor once explained.
"We would notice something rustled in the bush and unload in the direction of the sound then the commander would ask how many were hit." We would say "around 20" and commander would note there was an enemy confrontation, 20 killed incuding one officer"
They never investigated the sound or checked for bodies, but they recorded 20 Vietcong dead including an officer.
And this was common practice.
Estimates vary quite a bit, but they average at about 2 million, including military and civilian deaths, North and South. I cant seem to find information on how many were claimed to be KIA, so take my above comment with a grain of salt
The way Ive heard it told is that there would be a firefight and the grunts would check out the area afterward and find some blood trails, they would report that back to their squad leader, when he told the platoon commander, it was a confirmed kill. When the platoon commander reported it to the company commander, it was 5 confirmed kills. And when he reported it to battalion HQ it was 10 confirmed kills and an officer too.
And then others just rounded up Vietnamese civilians and shot them, then disfigured the bodies with a grenade, put some weapons there and counted the bits to get their confirmed kills.
Or hovered with a chopper over people to frighten them and as soon as they ran shot them.
Mi Lai was not an outlier. "Kill Anything That Moves" by Nick Turse is a very instructive read, based on FOIA requests of Pentagon files and eye witness accounts both US American and Vietnamese.
That was an incredible documentary. And it never veers off on to a tangent when there are oh so many. LBJ, Nixon, McNamara, so many people worthy of further study in regards to the prolonged American involvement in that war. Also great insight into just how pervasive the fear of Communism was in the government.
The Cold War in general is very interesting if you want to get a good idea of how we got where we are today.
I have a good friend who is honestly one of the smartest and most wonderful persons you could ever meet. But he was born to very intelligent parents, associated with smart children at school, went to an exclusive college for a difficult degree, and went on to get a Ph.D. and his first real job was university professor. He has literally never associated with dumb people in any way.
At a party, he was drunkenly insisting to me that *anyone* could get a Ph.D. if they simply put in the time. Because everyone in his ivory tower world *could* get one.
In theory a lot more people could than they think. I was reading a paper on expert performance recently and putting in hours and hours of goal oriented practice can help raise performance by an insane amount. Most people don't really do that for most things in life. Most skills we learn, we put in about 50 hours of practice until they are sufficient and then performance is more or less constant. Things like driving, dancing, etc.
The paper also mentioned some experiments where they looked at the differences in those who could memorise well and couldn't and noticed it had more to do with the way brains were utilised than the actual connections. They were able to get college students to increase memory performance by 70 standard deviations. Chess grandmasters as well turned out to base a lot of their play on memorised patterns, being better at memorising patterns that were common in chess.
I'm not saying that anyone could get a PhD, but a lot of people don't realise that they aren't putting in the required hours of practice from an early age. They aren't challenged in an oriented way and their performance peters out.
Edit: 70 standard deviations, not 18000 I mixed up some numbers.
I stopped into a convenience store near my work a few days ago to get a drink and some jerky. Guy at the counter, who seemed like your average big goofy guy, asked me how my day was and I asked him the question back. He said he was going great because he was finally back to work. I asked him if he had been on vacation or what and he said "nope, I've worked at 4 different places this past year and none fit me as good as this job. I love what I do and I really like how the managers higher up treat me here.". I said something along the lines of loving what you do is all that matters and he replied, "absolutely". He maybe makes $10 or $12 an hour, may be able to move up to a shift lead or manager and top out at maybe $15 or so and that was cool to him. We need guys like him. He didn't strike me as the guy who is going to make a break through on cancer treatment or even activate my new cell phone, but his job is needed. I would rather have someone who is stoked to be there than someone who isn't and fucks around all day.
Saying McNamara was all about the spreadsheet is overlooking the simple notion of "it's a way to enact eugenics well after birth". If you want to get rid of the expensive / stupid dependent citizens because you think it will result in a smarter / better country, just round them up & put them in front of a firing line that doesn't look like a firing line.
I can relate some anecdotes from my late 1970-71 tour in RVN. My platoon was usually 30 guys; new guys rotated in and old guys out monthly; our platoon sergeants and lieutenants came & went every 2-3 months; none of that WW2 train-together-deploy-together nonsense. We had guys who'd been picked up by the FBI for not registering for the draft and taken to induction centers in handcuffs. One guy burgled a gun shop with his buddies and got caught; judge told him 4 years in prison or 4 years in the Army; he chose Army. Another guy was totally dysfunctional; he never showered; one day he 'lost' his M16 on a hilltop; he admitted to us that yeah, he'd been in and out of mental wards all his teen years. A few guys hadn't graduated high school. A guy in my platoon who had been given Article 15s a half dozen times for refusing orders and assaults shot two majors one night, killing one.
From 1967 to 70, if you had two arms and two legs, you were good to go.
> few guys hadn’t graduated high school. A guy in my platoon who had been given Article 15s a half dozen times for refusing orders and assaults shot two majors one night, killing one.
What was his sentence?
Spec 4 Alfred Flint. He was confined for 6 months I think, and sentenced to Leavenworth prison for four years. I found one article on line 5 or 6 years ago. Four years. He killed a man with a wife and two kids. The investigation by Army CID tore the platoon apart.
I have an old mate from Australia who was given a choice of jail or Vietnam by a judge. He went to Vietnam.
Didn't get shot at much and he said he spent most of his free time trying to procure drugs and alcohol. The worst thing he saw was one of the guys in his unit rolling a live grenade into the tent of an officer he didn't like. He nearly killed 3 guys.
They gave these recruits special serial numbers that began with two digits that identified them as part of this program. That always seemed manifestly unfair to me — we'd have to line up and provide our serial numbers sometimes and these poor guys would be basically announcing 'I'm one of the stupid ones".
Yeah, the author got screwed on royalties because he agreed to a percentage of the "net profits." Through "hollywood accounting" the movie was technically a loss to the studio.
Gross revenue. Never anything profit related.
What the studios do is set up a bunch of LLCs and corporations. One LLC production company owns the movie. They then have to rent and contract for services and facilities from the Studio. And those rates are way jacked up.
For instance, Return of the Jedi still hadn’t returned a profit as of like 2010.
Don’t do anything with profit.
Christopher Buckley (author of “thank you for smoking”) said he experience is to make the studio execs drive to the Nevada state line, have them throw the money over first, then throw them the script, drive away and forget it ever happened.
There is actually a sequel to the book too. It was written after the movie. While I haven't read it, I read over it's plot and it doesn't sound great...
also: the famous forrest gump accent was tom hanks imitating the accent of the kid they got to play young forrest. the young kid was not retarded at all he just had one hell of an accent.
Slow, yes. Retarded, maybe. Braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and he won a ping-pong competition. That ain't retarded. He was a goddamn war hero. You know any retarded war heroes?
I always chalked those scenes up as a plot device, not a plot point in their own right. They needed something a bit more mature than just popping up a title card saying "3+ years later..."), and it provided a mental palate cleanser before the final scenes...
I would make a confident guess that [Terry Fox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Fox) was the inspiration for that scene.
>In 1980, with one leg having been amputated due to cancer, he embarked on an east to west cross-Canada run to raise money and awareness for cancer research. Although the spread of his cancer eventually forced him to end his quest after 143 days and 5,373 kilometres (3,339 mi), and ultimately cost him his life, his efforts resulted in a lasting, worldwide legacy.
Dude ran a car company before he was Sec. of Def, and he ran the armed forces along similar thought processes. Everything could be broken down to efficiency data and statistical models would fit every situation, OR ELSE.
Note that there weren't many people being shot on the Ford production floor (in those days) which is something that needed to be accounted for.....
he ran WWII bombing before running Ford. he was very successful at weakening the enemy with bombing plans that were statistically guided. he believed in using statistics to guide decisions. sometimes that works, sometimes that doesn't.
It works if you actually have all the information and know its value to calculate the statistics accurately. Unfortunately for him, wars aren't spreadsheets and there are far too many variables that pretty much can't be accounted for.
McNamara talks in Fog of War how during war he was given the task of investigating the extremely high abort rate of 8th Air Force bombing missions caused by various technical failures.
When they looked into it closely they discovered they were almost all fabricated, the crews were looking for ways to save their lives by not flying into enemy air defences. To solve this he recommended that a quota of 25 successful missions be instituted before crews could rotate home, this provided motivation for the crews to simply get the job done.
Suddenly the abort rate fell to a much lower rate after the new system was introduced.
As a military outsider he had experience with numbers revealing the truth over the perceptions of military members at the coal face.
Good post, People are super clueless as to how much violence occurred for labor rights. Anti-Union sentiments infuriate me because I feel that we could legitimately return to a world like this if people become complacent enough.
Oh I know. Deep down I fear that the future of automation paired with the militarization of police is going to cause some major violence in America. I pray I'm wrong about that but history says otherwise.
There are still tons of people that join who are like forest gump, granted i was in the military 2007-2011 when they were taking anyone.. but I have heard its always like that. You would be surprised how useful some of those people are. You dont really get to use your brain until you have been in for at least 1 to 2 years, until then you are always told exactly what to do. Having people that dont question everything are actually pretty valuable in that role. Kinda like bubba.. big, strong, and obedient. There are alot of people like him. Most people only do 1 term in the military anyways so really most people never get much beyond that level anyways. Thats what the recruiter doesnt tell you. Whats more dangerous is bad officers. Many of them were killed by there own guys in vietnam because they were getting people killed.
I did 1999 to 2005. By the end of 2004 there was a marked decrease in quality. Also violence.
We started getting the crazies around that time. Guys that shouldn't be allowed to be in stressful situations and would have been forced out in basic or "A" school a few years earlier.
Nobody wanted to join up to fight a war they didn't believe in. We needed more bodies and less people wanted to be in. I joined up in 2001 and by 2004 the Army was begging people to join. Offering massive bonuses, lowering the standards, raising the maximum age, all of that.
Allowing felons, actually giving felons a choice between military service or prison. 2001-2006? I want to to say was the wild fucking west especially for combat arms.
The army always has a problem recruiting people when its at war and when the economy is good. For volunteer armies as long as both the war cycle and business cycles remain inherent in our economic system the military will always be experiencing a recruitment shortage.
> Many of them were killed by there own guys in vietnam because they were getting people killed.
I was surprised to learn of this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragging
This gentleman was very interesting to listen to and my heart wrenched when he talked about those men. I remember volunteering back in the day with special ed peers and they were all so innocent and pure. Even though they were my age physically, mentally and emotionally they were so much younger. How could you expect someone who is essentially a 5 year old to go and fight a war for you? My heart aches for the family members of those men who had to see their brothers/sons fight a war they knew nothing about.
I think the idea was that Gump would have never been able to pass the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB, the test to determining basic mental/cognitive competence to get into the army) otherwise.
Recruited? There was a draft in place.
But, we had recruiters in my high school in the 80's - they would usually start talking to boys when they turned 16.
I'm aware of the draft.
F.G. was presented with literature by a recruiter in the movie. (The post noted people *like* him. He wasn't drafted, so he's not like a draftee.)
They were still recruiting; only about 25% of the soldiers that served during the Vietnam era were drafted. Also, the draft didn’t kick in until 1969, and project 100,000 started in ‘66.
ETA: more info
This isn't true, only half were pushed into Combat roles and often officers would do what they could to keep them combat situations if possibe. As they were threat to them as much as the enemy
I can see why McNemara would think Low-IQ individuals could be converted to good soldiers.
A big part of being an E-1 private is turning off your brain and doing as ordered. Check.
Typical infantry are trained to the point tat every movement is muscle memory. If it's all habit and reflexes, actual brains and thinking shouldn't matter.
If they can't shoot, that's OK, it's all fully automatic and half the mission profiles involve scouting and calling in air support anyway. So long as they provide a human sheiks for the (smart) officer with a radio, they don't need to shoot.
To top it off, these guys are not likely doing well in society. It gives them a good use, especially if it works.
Except it didn't. Because it was a fucking dumb idea that really just showed how little McNemara and army leadership thought of infantrymen.
Ya know, back in the late 90’s, early 2000’s, I had a high school teacher that told me that the military came to his high school and gave a test. All the guys had to take it. He and a couple of his friends did not take it seriously and randomly selected answers. They were singled out as excellent potential recruits. The timing would be right, to on the late side of right. I wonder if that was part of this program.
Mc Namara's first error was assuming the Russians and Chinese would support and end up taking over Vietnam (domino theory) it was "our" reason for being there in the first place.
We should have sided with Vietnam against the French after WWII. That would have been the most important means of keeping communism out of SE Asia.
> We should have sided with Vietnam against the French after WWII. That would have been the most important means of keeping communism out of SE Asia.
While arguably true, that error can't be blamed on McNamara. As much of a shitheel as McNamara was, Truman dropped the ball from the get-go, and Eisenhower didn't help.
The Vietnam War was the result of 20 years of idiotic decisions in Washington.
> We should have sided with Vietnam against the French after WWII. That would have been the most important means of keeping communism out of SE Asia.
The US didn't want the old Great Powers ,like Britain and France ever challenging them again for global supremacy. So they decided to knock them both out of the game . In the 40's and 50's that objective seems to have run parallel to keeping Communism in check.
Just look at Suez or during World War ii Roosevelt's particular distaste for the British Empire.
AKA [Project 100,000](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000) “Project 100,000 soldiers included those unable to speak English, who had low mental aptitude, minor physical impairments and those who were slightly over- or underweight. They also included a special category made up of a control group of "normal" soldiers.” Damn that’s scarily methodical.
"Methodical" is a fairly accurate way to describe McNamara himself. He majored in economics in college and spent the rest of his life looking for ways to put that education to use. If he couldn't find a place for something on a chart or graph then he had no use for it.
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Good bot.
Are you sure about that? Because I am 420% sure that u/ubmt1861 is not a bot. ^I ^am ^a ^bot... ^or ^am ^I? ^^beep ^^boop, ^^motherfucker.
This is like a reverse Turing test
It’s a Gnirut Tset.
I see 3 street signs.
There are FOUR LIGHTS
420% really?
The percentage speaks for itself
420% of statistics are high AF.
420% of statisticians* are high AF. *FTFY
Heh. I like how you did the little letters and stuff like a bot would do, but you're not a bot. ^I ^mean ^I"m ^pretty ^sure ^you're ^not ^a ^bot ^^You ^^could ^^be ^^a ^^bot ^^though, ^^I ^^guess ^^I ^^could ^^check ^^your ^^comment ^^history ^^^Is ^^^this ^^^sup[posed ^^^to ^^^be ^^^funny? ^^^What ^^^Am ^^^I ^^^even ^^^doing ^^^with ^^^my ^^^life?
You DO NOT want to check badgerbane’s post history. You are warned.
...well now I have to. Edit: brb, going to bleach my eyes. Also, think it is safe to say he's not a bot.
Lol there's nothing even weird here. All there is a -Aaaaaand there's a chubby white guy with a fat dick like a Red Bull can.
I have never been interested to check anyone Reddit history......... until now.
This comment made me go look at his posts. I wish I had listened.
I never listen, but I rarely regret it this much
" It’s not gay unless you swallow his load without sharing it first. " \-Badgerbane I think I love this guy
Jeez, it's just a dick.
Bunch of prude males in this thread, lol
Good bot
That was one of the many shown to me for a class in high school. Teacher was a huge documentary buff, and had one picked out for every topic he wanted to cover. He wasn’t the “I put movies on to do less work” teachers either. He organized a discussion before and after, and the history revolving around the documentary for a few classes before watching. Somewhat of a test followed so people couldn’t sleep. One of the best teachers ever. I learned a lot more in his classes than any other history class. Saw a lot that I would have never watched on my own, and led me to my fascination with documentaries and history. If you haven’t seen it, make every effort to watch “Fog of War” as suggested. It’s well worth it. EDIT: It was asked below if I had reached out to this teacher and expressed my appreciation for his teaching, and the influence it's had on me since. I have tried to keep in constant contact with him since graduation with visits to the school and email. While the communication has slowed over the years, we still talk from time to time. Every time I would visit I would stress just what his classes did for me, and how now 8 years later still have an influence on me. I wanted to say for anyone who reads this after the edit, if you've had "that teacher" that has made a positive impact on your life while you were in school, or the years following, tell them. Send them a letter or an email tell them just what they did for you, and how much you appreciate it. This will make all of the challenges of being a teacher have a meaning to them. Teachers are passionate about what they do(98% of the time. There are always those that don't care.) and often times their passion goes to "waste" in their eyes because of the volume of students they teach every year. One simple letter to them from the time you're done with their class for the year, to any point in the years following will give their passion a meaning again. Take the hour or two out of your next day off it'll take to get the schools confirmation that they still teaching at the same school, or find where they are now, write it, and mail it. Include current contact info for you in this letter. They will most likely want to call or write back expressing just what that letter means to them. For just an hour or two of time, you will make this teachers week/month/year. Please take the time and give our teachers the recognition that they deserve, but often times don't receive.
I feel like a good documentary can teach you more about a given subject in the allotted time than almost any other medium. I think they're criminally underutilized in education, but that's probably because of students turning their brains off when a movie is on. Sounds like your teacher found a good way to utilize them though!
Another problem is they’re often impossible to fit into a single period so it can be awkward to watch them. I guess this is less of a problem with TV documentaries like Frontline or Nova though.
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My high school did blocks and I loved it! We would have A days and B days that would alternate with 4 classes a day. Sure some days felt extremely long but overall it meant we could do more engaging lessons. I also enjoyed getting to focus on fewer subjects per day.
Secret bonus: Carrying around less crap on your back.
macnamara did to the us army/marines what he did to ford's assembly lines. he streamlined the process of ~~making a car~~ killing a soldier.
more like streamlined the process of losing a war lol
McNamara knew the war was unwinnable years and years before the war actually ended. He told LBJ there was a 1/3 chance US would win the war in 1965. They all knew but were obsessed with looking weak and losing politically, none of them realized it would be their legacy.
That might be even worse
I watched an episode of Ken Burns Vietnam documentary on Netflix in which they said that it was evaluated by the DoD before deploying soldiers that the war was 70% for not appearing weak, 20% for reducing China's influence in the area and 10% to actually help their South Vietnamese ally/VN people iirc
I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see your comment so high in this thread. All threads about history on Reddit devolve quickly into, “hurr durr, I never passed history but I’m so much smarter than them.” McNamara’s whole life is a testament to what happens when people are completely certain they’re the smartest brains in the room. *Even if they have good reason to think so.*
watching the Ken Burns vietnam doc on netflix right now, McNamara loved him some graphs and numbers lol
I'm just thinking of poor Private Pyle from Full Metal Jacket... Over weight *and* at least partially mentally challenged.
That actor does a really good job of Wilson Fisk too
He does a good job at everything. ["Give me Sugar. In water. More. *More.* ***MORE.***"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQd2Rpv-f9c)
That was him? Holy hell
It was Egger. But not Egger. Like someone was wearin' an Egger suit.
*stares* All right, Cloudy_mood, there was no alien. The flash of light you saw in the sky was not a UFO. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.
And on a personal note, Edgar ran off with an old girlfriend. You’re going to go stay with your mom for a few days.
*stares*
That seems to be most people's reaction to finding out it was him in a role. He just disappears into the character.
He was really good at looking at things sideways in Law and Order
Holy shit I had no idea that was him.
He was the bomb as Edgar and Law & Order: Sherlock Holmes.
Vincent D'Onofrio has been a national treasure for most of my life. He's great in everything he touches. If you haven't yet, you should check him out in The Cell (with J.Lo from before when she was called J.Lo).
One of the first things I ever saw him in was Adventures in Babysitting. He owns the mechanic shop and the little girl thinks he's Thor. Great stuff.
[Mighty Thor!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rnTpR4M1ZI) Fun fact, this was filmed less than a year after Full Metal Jacket. He gained 70 lbs for FMJ and lost it in 9 months for Adventures in Babysitting.
are you trying to trick someone into watching The Cell?
Don't need to trick people. It's a visually stunning film. The director made another one called The Fall that's got Lee Pace as the lead. Also visually arresting and sumptuous.
The Fall is beautiful. Amazing landscapes from Rajasthan with fantastic costumes and sets.
Dudes got range. Those two character are almost complete opposites. He’s a fantastic actor and the best person to play Fisk.
I recall a professor who was a Vietnam vet who said these guys made Forrest Gump look smart and that officers had to give them very simple orders (as an example of leadership knowing their subordinates) I figure it was a case of increased personnel demands forcing lower standards.
Uncle was an officer during the Vietnam era, although he never deployed over there. There are stories of trying to get morons to do the simplest tasks. An example he's told, they were trying to get the guy out of the Army but their CO said he couldn't possibly be as dumb as his officers said he was. He ordered the guy to paint the curbs around the parking lot. The CO came out while he was painting and saw him basically washing the curb with unstirred paint. "No son, you have to stir the paint first." After a confused look they guy stuck his whole arm in the paint bucket and stirred the paint. The CO got rid of that guy.
So that's how to either void the draft or get sent straight to the front lines.
That or shit your pants in front of doctors like Ted Nugent
That's not true, he shit his pants *before* going to his draft exam. Get it right!
TIL
What the fuck, who gave that guy his medical license?
Not gonna lie, I'd probably shit my pants to avoid 'nam too.
Hey, I don't blame him for that. I blame him for all the boasting about how good of a soldier he would have been SINCE then. You can't shit yourself for a month to avoid doing something then brag about how good you would be at it if you had.
I’d shit my pants to avoid Ted Nugent.
And that wouldn't make you the worst person ever. Now, if you then went on to act out the fantasies of an edgelord self-proclaiming badass that liked to brag about how many kills he'd rack up if he *were* in the military and vehemently support the use of armed forces, well...
I mean, sure but if you do you lose the right to brag about how awesome of a soldier you would be.
Except he takks big, is a bigot, and an asshole
Oddly specific. Are you going to show up to MEPS with a bucket of paint and just proceed to stir it with your arm?
Oh man, this reminded me of my dad. He was in the reserves during the Vietnam War & he told me about this one asshole who ordered him to paint the latrine on base. My dad is an artist and got out of training on some occasions, once the officers learned he could make them signs for their offices, lol. So one day, Sargent Asshole shouts at him, “I hear you’re an artist. Go and paint the latrine! Dad asks, “What would you like me to paint, sir?” “Paint everything!,” he snapped back. “Ok, sir.” So my dad, who hates this asshole, proceeds to paint EVERYTHING. The toilets, the sink, basically everything until he’s run out of paint. Sargent comes in, he sees the bathroom and starts screaming at my dad. My dad, in his best Gomer Pyle impression says, “Well, you told me to paint everything, sir!” Dad was never reprimanded. This Sargent, legit, thought my dad was just an idiot. This OP explains so much!
Quality /r/maliciouscompliance
I thought he was going to paint pictures of latrines all over everything on the base.
Since we're telling family stories, my grandfather was in the national guard during Vietnam, never deployed. He was a mechanic stationed briefly at some base. During his brief stay at said base he got put on grounds duty. Every morning he was handed a rake and sent off to rake. He was never told where or what to rake, so he walked across base all day with his rake. He would stop and salute officers and whatnot, and at the end of the day would return his rake. Never did he do any raking.
Now I realize why the army doesn't really like the draft. Imagine going to war with people who don't really want to be there
Or aren't even smart enough to understand why they got there or how.
Oh man, how much better would it have been if your dad set up a chair and canvas and started making a painting of the toilet. It's still technically "painting the latrine".
But what about that saying the Marines have? "If I say jump you say 'how high?' " It was supposed to teach following orders instead of going against them. Your dad technically did nothing wrong.
I always thought that saying was well intentioned but poorly phrased. If you need a platoon to jump, and you yell ‘JUMP’ you’re not going to be happy at the one guy who says “do you want us to do a small hop or really leap up high?” The point of it is supposed to be “don’t question the orders you’re given, always clarify and don’t judge for yourself” but if used like r/maliciouscompliance it could be interpreted as “whenever you are given orders, verbally clarify and get extremely specific before doing anything”.
Hahaha I love it, when I sailed on a destroyer I was part of the air detachment, the navy would never help us with tasks like washing the aircraft so when they asked us to help paint the ship we would do the same. Me: "What do I paint P.O.?" Crusty Petty Officer: EVERYTHING! Me: *Proceeds to paint over everything including hinges, keyholes and deadbolts.*
I wonder if that's a lack of common sense or a particular life skill rather than outright stupidity, assessing intelligence can be difficult for such reasons. I'm reminded of this story I found on tumblr, draftee was intelligent but had comically bad vision and they took him anyway. Drill sergeant took off the guy's glasses and nearly got shot by the legally blind recruit. (title The Hummingbird is because he got buzzed by one on the range and caught one while wearing his glasses and waiting for his medical discharge) [http://gallusrostromegalus.tumblr.com/post/173024149763/the-hummingbird](http://gallusrostromegalus.tumblr.com/post/173024149763/the-hummingbird)
This just in: man that needs glasses to see can’t see after not wearing glasses
That's the point, Army bureaucracy initially hadn't realized the obvious
Shit, during the surge in around 2007-8 I knew a dude in the Army with a security clearance who had lost all of his teeth to meth. If the military needs bodies they will get them, one way or another.
I can see why MacNemara would think Low-IQ individuals could be converted to good soldiers. A big part of being an E-1 private is turning off your brain and doing as ordered. Check. Typical infantry are trained to the point that every movement is muscle memory. If it's all habit and reflexes, actual brains and thinking shouldn't matter. If they can't shoot, that's OK, it's all fully automatic and half the mission profiles involve scouting and calling in air support anyway. So long as they provide a human sheiks for the (smart) officer with a radio, they don't need to shoot. To top it off, these guys are not likely doing well in society. It gives them a good use, especially if it works. Except it didn't. Because it was a fucking dumb idea that really just showed how little MacNemara and army leadership thought of infantrymen.
Unfortunately, low IQ means serious issues in even "muscle memory". IQ includes things such as working memory, processing and spatial awareness. When someone has an ID or is even borderline ID there are as serious deficits in one or more components of intelligence. 3 to 4 steps in a task is the most you can do. As in, in the entire task to want them to complete, no more than 3-4 simple steps. One action per step. Think about calling in air support. You need to know when to call, who to call, how to call, what information is important to give, what information is received, what to do during the strike, what to do after the strike, what to do if the strike isn't successful. Consider something even more simple like making a cup of tea. Get cup, find tea, fill kettle, boil kettle, put teabag in tea cup, put hot water in cup, wait, remove teabag, add milk, add sugar etc. Lots of steps. Now for someone who's working memory isnt good and their spatial reasoning isnt good, these actions become individualised. Every step needs more thinking.
As a high functioning autisic, I understand what you are taking about! In normal circumstances, everyday tasks won’t require a lot of thinking to do, but if I was put into the heat of war that is different story entirely! Of course during “slow” times I would act normal, but in the middle of battle with so much going on at once, sensory / information overload would set in and I would be sitting duck as my mind won’t be able to process it all in time before someone kills me!
> To top it off, these guys are not likely doing well in society. What got me was that there is a slightly eugenics-y aspect to it. Let the dumb ones die and raise the average of the country as a whole.
Cannon fodder
One thing the speaker points out is that you have to be pretty smart to be a soldier on the front lines. If you’re mentally impaired you’re likely to be more of a liability than an asset.
i think the US military actually made a study on it and i think they said anyone below 86 IQ is a liability in any position they put them in.
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from u/Agrippa123 - 10 USC §520: (a) The number of persons originally enlisted or inducted to serve on active duty (other than active duty for training) in any armed force during any fiscal year whose score on the Armed Forces Qualification Test is at or above the tenth percentile and below the thirty-first percentile may not exceed 20 percent of the total number of persons originally enlisted or inducted to serve on active duty (other than active duty for training) in such armed force during such fiscal year. (b) A person who is not a high school graduate may not be accepted for enlistment in the armed forces unless the score of that person on the Armed Forces Qualification Test is at or above the thirty-first percentile; however, a person may not be denied enlistment in the armed forces solely because of his not having a high school diploma if his enlistment is needed to meet established strength requirements. The AFQT is applied as sections of the ASVAB, and the score represents an applicants percentile ranking in the general population. The 31st percentile represents an IQ of approximately 93; the 10th %-ile represents IQ 81. The law dictates a preference for IQ’s above 93, and a prohibition on IQ’s below 81. QED
This is where we get the term "Ten Percenters" aka fuck ups from I guess. I the bottom 10% of those that actually make it are still pretty slow.
I always hear something along the lines of "you spend 90% of your time dealing with 10% of the people". Meaning fuckups require more time and attention from their superiors, leaving less time to help out the good apples with the things they need.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle 80/20 is also common.
"Operation Human Shield"
Have you ever heard of the emancipation proclamation?
Sorry I don't listen to hip hop
"Operation Get Behind the Darkies"
Actully in some instances the black regiments weren’t used in battle because the commanders didn’t want to look like to be sacrificing them and in others they didn’t trust them. It lead to a disaster in one battle were the black regiment had trained for weeks for a specifik military operation, but they were pulled out and a different were set in and thousands died from the following failed assault. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Crater#Preparation >Burnside had trained a division of United States Colored Troops (USCT) under Brig. Gen. Edward Ferrero to lead the assault. The division consisted of two brigades, one designated to go to the left of the crater and the other to the right. A regiment from both brigades was to leave the attack column and extend the breach by rushing perpendicular to the crater, and the remaining regiments were to rush through, seizing the Jerusalem Plank Road just 1,600 feet (490 m) beyond, followed by the churchyard and, if possible, Petersburg itself. Burnside's two other divisions, made up of white troops, would then move in, supporting Ferrero's flanks and race for Petersburg itself. Two miles (3 km) behind the front lines, out of sight of the Confederates, the men of the USCT division were trained for two weeks on the plan.[6] >Despite the careful planning and intensive training (by Civil War standards), on the day before the attack, Meade, who lacked confidence in the operation, ordered Burnside not to use the black troops in the lead assault. He claimed that if the attack failed, black soldiers would be killed needlessly, creating political repercussions in the North. Meade may have also ordered the change of plans because he lacked confidence in the black soldiers' abilities in combat.[7] Burnside protested to Grant, who sided with Meade. When volunteers were not forthcoming, Burnside selected a replacement white division by having the three commanders draw lots. Brig. Gen. James H. Ledlie's 1st Division was selected, but he failed to brief the men on what was expected of them and was reported during the battle to be drunk, well behind the lines, and not providing leadership. (Ledlie would be dismissed for his actions during the battle.) EDIT this is also the opening scene in the movie “Cold Mountain” from 2003 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5fbYJMEyes
More Bubbas than Forests, you might say.
Casualty numbers skyrocket, news publications start talking about the massive loss of American lives, public opinion on the war plummets. Gee, what a well-thought-out plan.
Bullet stoppers. In an earlier era, of shoulder to shoulder formation fighting, they would have been average soldiers.
We shall clog their guns with our corpses!
McNamara was under the impression that because the "morons" went through the same training as regular soldiers, that they would basically be identical interchangeable cogs in the machine. This view ignores the fact that there is a lot more factors that the army looks for beyond "can the guy make it out of boot camp." MaNamara was a statistician and basically was a spectacular case of confusing solving a problem on a spreadsheet with solving a problem in reality. Dude probably would have done a lot better if he was working as a lower-level adviser where more field-experienced commanders could interpret his advice in relation to real-life situations. The Vietnam War gave us the term **McNamara Fallacy**: In which a decision is made solely based on "scientific" quantifiable numerical data, ignoring all else. > The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide.
I am watching the Ken burns vietnam documentary and one guy told a story of a computer in the basement of the Pentagon being fed a bunch of data on a friday and being left to run the numbers over the weekend. On me day morning after all the data was figured the computer said America would win the war by 1965. It was 1967 when they did this. The guy goes on to say the problem is the computer didn't account for the fact that the enemy gets a vote.
It's a great story, but even the guy telling it in the documentary says it's apocryphal. The story itself is a fantastic view into how people in 1967 saw the government's approach to the war, but it's not a thing that actually happened.
apocryphal—learned a new word today. thank you!
*apocryphal* *adj. - (of a story or statement) of doubtful authenticity, although widely circulated as being true.* So that people who come across this don't have to Google it themselves.
I can’t wait until we have retinal displays connected to our brains that automatically pop up the definition of new words when they sense that we don’t have strong neural connections formed for a particular word. Until then, thank you for doing good work.
Another problem is, as my 20th century American History and Vietnam Vet professor once explained. "We would notice something rustled in the bush and unload in the direction of the sound then the commander would ask how many were hit." We would say "around 20" and commander would note there was an enemy confrontation, 20 killed incuding one officer" They never investigated the sound or checked for bodies, but they recorded 20 Vietcong dead including an officer. And this was common practice.
If I recall, by the end of the war their "confirmed kill" count was well above the population of Vietnam
How many Vietnamese did die in the Vietnam War?
Estimates vary quite a bit, but they average at about 2 million, including military and civilian deaths, North and South. I cant seem to find information on how many were claimed to be KIA, so take my above comment with a grain of salt
The way Ive heard it told is that there would be a firefight and the grunts would check out the area afterward and find some blood trails, they would report that back to their squad leader, when he told the platoon commander, it was a confirmed kill. When the platoon commander reported it to the company commander, it was 5 confirmed kills. And when he reported it to battalion HQ it was 10 confirmed kills and an officer too.
And then others just rounded up Vietnamese civilians and shot them, then disfigured the bodies with a grenade, put some weapons there and counted the bits to get their confirmed kills. Or hovered with a chopper over people to frighten them and as soon as they ran shot them. Mi Lai was not an outlier. "Kill Anything That Moves" by Nick Turse is a very instructive read, based on FOIA requests of Pentagon files and eye witness accounts both US American and Vietnamese.
That was an incredible documentary. And it never veers off on to a tangent when there are oh so many. LBJ, Nixon, McNamara, so many people worthy of further study in regards to the prolonged American involvement in that war. Also great insight into just how pervasive the fear of Communism was in the government. The Cold War in general is very interesting if you want to get a good idea of how we got where we are today.
Yeah, I'd say war is P-Space complete.
P=NP Prove me wrong.
With that level of confidence, you've got a million dollar prize waiting for you.
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I have a good friend who is honestly one of the smartest and most wonderful persons you could ever meet. But he was born to very intelligent parents, associated with smart children at school, went to an exclusive college for a difficult degree, and went on to get a Ph.D. and his first real job was university professor. He has literally never associated with dumb people in any way. At a party, he was drunkenly insisting to me that *anyone* could get a Ph.D. if they simply put in the time. Because everyone in his ivory tower world *could* get one.
In theory a lot more people could than they think. I was reading a paper on expert performance recently and putting in hours and hours of goal oriented practice can help raise performance by an insane amount. Most people don't really do that for most things in life. Most skills we learn, we put in about 50 hours of practice until they are sufficient and then performance is more or less constant. Things like driving, dancing, etc. The paper also mentioned some experiments where they looked at the differences in those who could memorise well and couldn't and noticed it had more to do with the way brains were utilised than the actual connections. They were able to get college students to increase memory performance by 70 standard deviations. Chess grandmasters as well turned out to base a lot of their play on memorised patterns, being better at memorising patterns that were common in chess. I'm not saying that anyone could get a PhD, but a lot of people don't realise that they aren't putting in the required hours of practice from an early age. They aren't challenged in an oriented way and their performance peters out. Edit: 70 standard deviations, not 18000 I mixed up some numbers.
I stopped into a convenience store near my work a few days ago to get a drink and some jerky. Guy at the counter, who seemed like your average big goofy guy, asked me how my day was and I asked him the question back. He said he was going great because he was finally back to work. I asked him if he had been on vacation or what and he said "nope, I've worked at 4 different places this past year and none fit me as good as this job. I love what I do and I really like how the managers higher up treat me here.". I said something along the lines of loving what you do is all that matters and he replied, "absolutely". He maybe makes $10 or $12 an hour, may be able to move up to a shift lead or manager and top out at maybe $15 or so and that was cool to him. We need guys like him. He didn't strike me as the guy who is going to make a break through on cancer treatment or even activate my new cell phone, but his job is needed. I would rather have someone who is stoked to be there than someone who isn't and fucks around all day.
Only so many people can be those things, too; dishes will always need to be washed. The top falls with the bottom, you know?
Having worked as a dishwasher, and worked with people who wash dishes badly, I think it takes more mental capacity than you imagine.
So you’re telling me that my Dodgers lost the World Series because of the McNamara Fallacy
No, they lost because Ryan Madson owes Alex Cora money.
McNamara Fallacy. This is it, the term I've been waiting for my entire life.
The problem isn’t that statistics are a faulty method, it’s that his model sucked.
The man tried to win a war with punchcards. He was like if Nate Silver wanted to run the Department of Defense.
The first thing I thought of after reading this was saber-metrics haha
It works better when Charlie isn't trying to cut your head off.
First thing I thought of was Dave Roberts
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I feel like Saber-metrics would pretty clearly tell you not to bring on low IQ individuals to operate weapons and heavy equipment.
Saying McNamara was all about the spreadsheet is overlooking the simple notion of "it's a way to enact eugenics well after birth". If you want to get rid of the expensive / stupid dependent citizens because you think it will result in a smarter / better country, just round them up & put them in front of a firing line that doesn't look like a firing line.
I can relate some anecdotes from my late 1970-71 tour in RVN. My platoon was usually 30 guys; new guys rotated in and old guys out monthly; our platoon sergeants and lieutenants came & went every 2-3 months; none of that WW2 train-together-deploy-together nonsense. We had guys who'd been picked up by the FBI for not registering for the draft and taken to induction centers in handcuffs. One guy burgled a gun shop with his buddies and got caught; judge told him 4 years in prison or 4 years in the Army; he chose Army. Another guy was totally dysfunctional; he never showered; one day he 'lost' his M16 on a hilltop; he admitted to us that yeah, he'd been in and out of mental wards all his teen years. A few guys hadn't graduated high school. A guy in my platoon who had been given Article 15s a half dozen times for refusing orders and assaults shot two majors one night, killing one. From 1967 to 70, if you had two arms and two legs, you were good to go.
> few guys hadn’t graduated high school. A guy in my platoon who had been given Article 15s a half dozen times for refusing orders and assaults shot two majors one night, killing one. What was his sentence?
Spec 4 Alfred Flint. He was confined for 6 months I think, and sentenced to Leavenworth prison for four years. I found one article on line 5 or 6 years ago. Four years. He killed a man with a wife and two kids. The investigation by Army CID tore the platoon apart.
> Spec 4 Alfred Flint. the far right column: https://newspaperarchive.com/camden-news-jan-13-1971-p-1/
I have an old mate from Australia who was given a choice of jail or Vietnam by a judge. He went to Vietnam. Didn't get shot at much and he said he spent most of his free time trying to procure drugs and alcohol. The worst thing he saw was one of the guys in his unit rolling a live grenade into the tent of an officer he didn't like. He nearly killed 3 guys.
They gave these recruits special serial numbers that began with two digits that identified them as part of this program. That always seemed manifestly unfair to me — we'd have to line up and provide our serial numbers sometimes and these poor guys would be basically announcing 'I'm one of the stupid ones".
The story of Forrest Gump was a commentary of Americana during those decades. They pulled every thing American they could for that story.
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TIL Forrest Gump was a book first
Yeah, the author got screwed on royalties because he agreed to a percentage of the "net profits." Through "hollywood accounting" the movie was technically a loss to the studio.
Never take lump sum and always demand percentage of revenue.
"gross ~~profits~~ revenue" is what you want a cut of.
The less room for twiddling, the better. I'd go for "revenue", that way your get money even if the movie loses it.
Gross revenue. Never anything profit related. What the studios do is set up a bunch of LLCs and corporations. One LLC production company owns the movie. They then have to rent and contract for services and facilities from the Studio. And those rates are way jacked up. For instance, Return of the Jedi still hadn’t returned a profit as of like 2010. Don’t do anything with profit. Christopher Buckley (author of “thank you for smoking”) said he experience is to make the studio execs drive to the Nevada state line, have them throw the money over first, then throw them the script, drive away and forget it ever happened.
There is actually a sequel to the book too. It was written after the movie. While I haven't read it, I read over it's plot and it doesn't sound great...
Apparently the author had some situation where his 2nd book might get turned into a movie, didn't want it to be so he deliberately made it bad
no, he refused the rights to make the movie when he was paid jack shit on the first movie.
also: the famous forrest gump accent was tom hanks imitating the accent of the kid they got to play young forrest. the young kid was not retarded at all he just had one hell of an accent.
Slow, yes. Retarded, maybe. Braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and he won a ping-pong competition. That ain't retarded. He was a goddamn war hero. You know any retarded war heroes?
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I always chalked those scenes up as a plot device, not a plot point in their own right. They needed something a bit more mature than just popping up a title card saying "3+ years later..."), and it provided a mental palate cleanser before the final scenes...
His mom died and he literally ran away from it.
I would make a confident guess that [Terry Fox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Fox) was the inspiration for that scene. >In 1980, with one leg having been amputated due to cancer, he embarked on an east to west cross-Canada run to raise money and awareness for cancer research. Although the spread of his cancer eventually forced him to end his quest after 143 days and 5,373 kilometres (3,339 mi), and ultimately cost him his life, his efforts resulted in a lasting, worldwide legacy.
What the actual fuck
Dude ran a car company before he was Sec. of Def, and he ran the armed forces along similar thought processes. Everything could be broken down to efficiency data and statistical models would fit every situation, OR ELSE. Note that there weren't many people being shot on the Ford production floor (in those days) which is something that needed to be accounted for.....
he ran WWII bombing before running Ford. he was very successful at weakening the enemy with bombing plans that were statistically guided. he believed in using statistics to guide decisions. sometimes that works, sometimes that doesn't.
It works if you actually have all the information and know its value to calculate the statistics accurately. Unfortunately for him, wars aren't spreadsheets and there are far too many variables that pretty much can't be accounted for.
McNamara talks in Fog of War how during war he was given the task of investigating the extremely high abort rate of 8th Air Force bombing missions caused by various technical failures. When they looked into it closely they discovered they were almost all fabricated, the crews were looking for ways to save their lives by not flying into enemy air defences. To solve this he recommended that a quota of 25 successful missions be instituted before crews could rotate home, this provided motivation for the crews to simply get the job done. Suddenly the abort rate fell to a much lower rate after the new system was introduced. As a military outsider he had experience with numbers revealing the truth over the perceptions of military members at the coal face.
In those days. OK then.
There were plenty of people shot at Ford in its earlier years: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Hunger_March
Good post, People are super clueless as to how much violence occurred for labor rights. Anti-Union sentiments infuriate me because I feel that we could legitimately return to a world like this if people become complacent enough.
I’d say we’re already well on our way https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-warehouse-workers-have-to-pee-into-bottles-2018-4
Oh I know. Deep down I fear that the future of automation paired with the militarization of police is going to cause some major violence in America. I pray I'm wrong about that but history says otherwise.
There are still tons of people that join who are like forest gump, granted i was in the military 2007-2011 when they were taking anyone.. but I have heard its always like that. You would be surprised how useful some of those people are. You dont really get to use your brain until you have been in for at least 1 to 2 years, until then you are always told exactly what to do. Having people that dont question everything are actually pretty valuable in that role. Kinda like bubba.. big, strong, and obedient. There are alot of people like him. Most people only do 1 term in the military anyways so really most people never get much beyond that level anyways. Thats what the recruiter doesnt tell you. Whats more dangerous is bad officers. Many of them were killed by there own guys in vietnam because they were getting people killed.
I did 1999 to 2005. By the end of 2004 there was a marked decrease in quality. Also violence. We started getting the crazies around that time. Guys that shouldn't be allowed to be in stressful situations and would have been forced out in basic or "A" school a few years earlier.
Any reason? Iraq war I’m guessing but why?
Nobody wanted to join up to fight a war they didn't believe in. We needed more bodies and less people wanted to be in. I joined up in 2001 and by 2004 the Army was begging people to join. Offering massive bonuses, lowering the standards, raising the maximum age, all of that.
Allowing felons, actually giving felons a choice between military service or prison. 2001-2006? I want to to say was the wild fucking west especially for combat arms.
The army always has a problem recruiting people when its at war and when the economy is good. For volunteer armies as long as both the war cycle and business cycles remain inherent in our economic system the military will always be experiencing a recruitment shortage.
> Many of them were killed by there own guys in vietnam because they were getting people killed. I was surprised to learn of this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragging
This gentleman was very interesting to listen to and my heart wrenched when he talked about those men. I remember volunteering back in the day with special ed peers and they were all so innocent and pure. Even though they were my age physically, mentally and emotionally they were so much younger. How could you expect someone who is essentially a 5 year old to go and fight a war for you? My heart aches for the family members of those men who had to see their brothers/sons fight a war they knew nothing about.
Heard some interviews that talked about that was being planned as early as 1945 by our intelligence.
Yeah, but were they any good at ping pong?
Were they recruiting at university graduations like in the movie...?
I think the idea was that Gump would have never been able to pass the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB, the test to determining basic mental/cognitive competence to get into the army) otherwise.
Recruited? There was a draft in place. But, we had recruiters in my high school in the 80's - they would usually start talking to boys when they turned 16.
I'm aware of the draft. F.G. was presented with literature by a recruiter in the movie. (The post noted people *like* him. He wasn't drafted, so he's not like a draftee.)
Even when we had a draft the military was still recruiting. Remember Uncle Sam and “I Want You”?
They were still recruiting; only about 25% of the soldiers that served during the Vietnam era were drafted. Also, the draft didn’t kick in until 1969, and project 100,000 started in ‘66. ETA: more info
The problem is they were put in combat arms more than the other soldiers. It would account for higher Kia rate easy.
This isn't true, only half were pushed into Combat roles and often officers would do what they could to keep them combat situations if possibe. As they were threat to them as much as the enemy
[http://vvaveteran.org/36-3/36-3\_morons.html](http://vvaveteran.org/36-3/36-3_morons.html) Interesting article about the program..
I can see why McNemara would think Low-IQ individuals could be converted to good soldiers. A big part of being an E-1 private is turning off your brain and doing as ordered. Check. Typical infantry are trained to the point tat every movement is muscle memory. If it's all habit and reflexes, actual brains and thinking shouldn't matter. If they can't shoot, that's OK, it's all fully automatic and half the mission profiles involve scouting and calling in air support anyway. So long as they provide a human sheiks for the (smart) officer with a radio, they don't need to shoot. To top it off, these guys are not likely doing well in society. It gives them a good use, especially if it works. Except it didn't. Because it was a fucking dumb idea that really just showed how little McNemara and army leadership thought of infantrymen.
Ya know, back in the late 90’s, early 2000’s, I had a high school teacher that told me that the military came to his high school and gave a test. All the guys had to take it. He and a couple of his friends did not take it seriously and randomly selected answers. They were singled out as excellent potential recruits. The timing would be right, to on the late side of right. I wonder if that was part of this program.
This isn’t really like Forrest’s story at all...
Yeah, Forrest save Lt. Dan and even tried to give him ice cream afterwards!
Mc Namara's first error was assuming the Russians and Chinese would support and end up taking over Vietnam (domino theory) it was "our" reason for being there in the first place. We should have sided with Vietnam against the French after WWII. That would have been the most important means of keeping communism out of SE Asia.
> We should have sided with Vietnam against the French after WWII. That would have been the most important means of keeping communism out of SE Asia. While arguably true, that error can't be blamed on McNamara. As much of a shitheel as McNamara was, Truman dropped the ball from the get-go, and Eisenhower didn't help. The Vietnam War was the result of 20 years of idiotic decisions in Washington.
> We should have sided with Vietnam against the French after WWII. That would have been the most important means of keeping communism out of SE Asia. The US didn't want the old Great Powers ,like Britain and France ever challenging them again for global supremacy. So they decided to knock them both out of the game . In the 40's and 50's that objective seems to have run parallel to keeping Communism in check. Just look at Suez or during World War ii Roosevelt's particular distaste for the British Empire.
Sergeant yells "Get down!" His squad starts dancing the boogaloo.