This is Jockel Podcast number 315 with Echo Charles and me, Jockel Willink. Good evening, Echo.

7 plus 14 equals A21, B22, C23, D24.

A boy buys a sandwich for 20 cents, milk for 10 cents, and pie for 15 cents.

How much does he pay for it all? A, 30 cents, B, 35 cents, C, 45 cents, D, 50 cents.

A rose is a kind of A animal, B bird, C fish, D flower.

Awkward, most merely means A ignorant, B dangerous, C clumsy, D vulgar.

I rate most nearly means A irresponsible, B insubordinate, C untidy, D angry.

Okay, so those right there, clearly not the most difficult problems.

Those are examples from a brochure that was handed out to potential service recruits in the 1960s.

To explain to them the type of questions that they were going to be asked on the AFQT, the Armed Forces Qualification Test,

what we now call the ASVAB in order to qualify them for military service. And I read that from an appendix that's in a book called McNamara's Folly,

the use of low IQ troops in the Vietnam War. And this book was written by a guy by the name of Hamilton Gregory, who served in Vietnam himself.

And in this book, Gregory explains that not everyone could pass that test, which meant that there were people who did not qualify to join the service.

It meant they did not have the cognitive capacity to be a soldier. But guess what?

In order to fight a war, you need men. And McNamara devised a way to get more men into the military, whether they were capable or not.

And it is a very sad story indeed.

You can find out that Hamilton Gregory actually ended up very close with some of these people during some parts of his service.

So let's go to the book. In 1966, the US War and Vietnam was heating up rapidly. President Johnson and his Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara,

were faced with a problem. The Armed Forces needed more troops for the war zone. But there was a shortage of men who were considered fair game for the military draft.

There were plenty of men of draft age, which is 18 to 26 in America. But most of them were unavailable. Many were attending college using student deferments to avoid the draft.

Others had found safe havens in the National Guard and reserves, which by and large were not sent to Vietnam.

So if you went in the National Guard and the reserves, you weren't going to get sent to war. That's not true anymore.

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