Inside the Pentagon's shameful effort to draft mentally disabled men to fight in Vietnam

I had one of these guys in my BCT platoon. He was hopeless when it came to wearing web gear, so the platoon guide was assigned to make sure he always had it on correctly when falling out for the first formation of the day and periodically throughout the day. The guide's name was Baugh, and our CAT IV could be heard screaming out his name: "BAUGH! BAUGH! Where are you? BAUGH!"

Our DSs would tip off the training cadre that we had one of "them" in our ranks and they would treat him unmercifully in a variety of classes. The one that really sticks in my memory was NBC training on how to respond to a nerve agent attack.

The NCO teaching the class called our guy to the stand to act as a demonstrator. When he got up there the NCO had him suit up in MOPP 4 and then explained the procedure for administering atropine injections. He then held up a piece of 1/2"-thick plywood and smacked an injector against it. The needle easily penetrated it completely and you could see our guy's eyes grow huge behind the lenses of his protective mask.

The NCO had our guy take off his mask and then shouted, "Gas! Gas! Gas!"

Our guy froze and the sergeant smacked his shoulder and shouted at him to put on his mask. Our guy fumbled around for a seemingly interminable time before finally getting it on semi-correctly.

The NCO explained to his assistant that our man had obviously received a potentially fatal dose of nerve agent and would require atropine. Our man shook his head to say no, but the assistant ignored him, pulled out an injection simulator, and smacked it against his thigh. The poor guy jumped at least a foot in the air and as the assistant quickly pulled the injector away a needle popped out.

The instructor looked at our guy's eyes and told his assistant his pupils were widely dilated. He then asked if our guy's mouth felt dry. He frantically shook his head, but the NCO told the assistant it was obvious his mouth was dry because he couldn't speak. He then said they were simulating a 10-minute wait and told his assistant to prepare for another injection. Our poor guy tried to break from his grasp when he pulled out the injection simulator, but one of our DSs grabbed him from behind and held him while the assistant smacked the simulator against his thigh. This time our guy wet himself.

They followed the procedure for the simulated third injection with the same result, except this time our guy collapsed in a heap crying. The instructor pulled him to his feet and helped him remove his mask while explaining that if this had been a real situation, the atropine injections would have saved his life.

Our CAT IV successfully graduated and was awarded MOS 57A--duty soldier.

Fast forward 40 years. In 2010 I met two guys who had been badly wounded in Vietnam while serving as grunts in the 1st Cav. Div. and 25th Inf. Div. in Tet of '68. Both were eventually given Chap. 10 discharges under general other than honorable conditions and were ineligible for VA benefits and care. Working with our state Office of Veterans Services and a legal outfit that was assisting vets in their predicament, I got them both in front of the Court of Veterans Appeals and got their discharges upgraded to general under honorable conditions.

Neither of them should have gotten such discharges in the first place. One of them scored so low on the ASVAB that he barely made the cut for CAT IV! Both were patriotic, hard-working men who had been abandoned like yesterday's garbage. They have both since passed on as a direct result of their combat wounds. At least they were receiving benefits and health care for the last few years of their lives. . . .

Capt Rich Buckley Cpl Bruce Stokes 1SG Ken Rossi CPT (Join to see) SN Jeffrey White MSgt Stephen Council SPC Luis Borges CH (MAJ) Eric Dye SSG Eduardo Alegría LTC Martin Metz SPC Charles Nesbitt LTC (Join to see) CMDCM John F. "Doc" Bradshaw CDR Andrew McMenamin, PhD SGM Major Stroupe LTC Tom Jones MAJ Karen Wall SPC Marley Ngwa MAJ Wayne Wickizer A1C Thomas Lenner

I agree Project 100,000 was a glaring example of a failure in judgement, however, while the author borders on blaming the fiasco on racism, I am more prone to placing blame on an attitude that continues to this day.
McNamara was an efficiency expert dedicated to economies of scale. Witness has standardization dictates that eliminated many service unique traits such as branch unique field uniforms, the brown shoe navy and other examples of divergence from the norm he considered wasteful.
To him and his appointed or elected political elites, the military are second class people who lack the judgement and intellectual capabilities we all know are essential for successful service. To the elite, we are all exemplified by the soldiers of the revolutionary era who stand in lines shooting their enemy and conversely being mowed down by their enemy.
The Cat IVs were merely more cannon fodder and fit well into their concept of the mindless military mass. Then, as today, those civilians responsible for military programs and policies reflect their distain for, and lack of appreciation of the unique and admirable qualities necessary in a military member.

The CAT IV soldiers that the Army drafted...