Talk:Project 100,000

Clarification needed

In the Background section, the article says

In a series of decisions, the Pentagon lowered the required score to be inducted to as low as 10 on the Armed Forces Qualification Test (perfect score: 100)—a 6% drop (as of 2019, 10 remains the minimum score required for induction).

Does this lowering of the required score mark the beginning of Project 100,000, or is it a separate, unrelated development? If it indeed marks the beginning, I have two requests:

• the article should state when this lowering occurred.
• The last parenthesized phrase seems to suggest that the lowered required scores of Project 100,000 are still in effect today. Is that correct?

AxelBoldt (talk) 13:08, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

It refers to 10th percentile based on the set of people taking the test at that time. See Armed_Services_Vocational_Aptitude_Battery#Armed_Forces_Qualification_Test for details. I corrected the current text. The parenthetical phrase about 2019 minimum score was previously deleted. AFQT section explains the current minimum percentile for each branch of the armed services, none of which is below 30. Martindo (talk) 08:57, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Comparison

Stats about lower income and higher divorce rate for this group of veterans are only compared with similar IQ non-veterans. But this begs the question of whether this group of veterans actually fared worse than Vietnam veterans as a whole. The current comparison is deceptively incomplete because there has been plenty of media coverage for half a century about general difficulties in readjusting to civilian life, which is only hinted qualitatively in the quote by Kelly Greenhill. Someone familiar with her work should find stats to make the comparison meaningful. At present, it's only a half-truth. Martindo (talk) 09:02, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Problematic sources

The article is based primarily on the book McNamara's Folly, published by Infinity Publishing. This is a self-publishing corporation. Much of the article is also sourced from a Youtube video done by the book's author. Neither of these sources meet common Wikipedia standards for sourcing.

As an example of some of the substantial questions left by the article's presentation, how many of the approximately 354,000 men accepted under the program served actually served in Vietnam? How many of the men who served in Vietnam were in combat positions?

An article in the Washington Monthly by Myra McPherson is cited for the claim that "the program offered a one-way ticket to Vietnam, where these men fought and died in disproportionate numbers." This is not an acceptable source for this claim.

Much of the background material is hard to understand and/or in error. For example, the U.S. military does not administer IQ tests, so the claim that one must have an IQ of 80 to get in the military seems in error.

There is also a claim that more underqualified or underskilled recruits were accepted in the 1980s due to a "misinformed" ASVAB, the aptitude test administered by the Army. This should be "misnormed", meaning the norm for the test was calculated incorrectly.

Yet the Wikipedia article on the test states that it was not renormalized until 2004. Why is it only in the 1980s that there were an excess of unqualified recruits? Definitely some issues that need to be clarified here. Rgr09 (talk) 11:44, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Was it racist?

What percentage of the 100,000 were black? 2600:1702:5210:EEC0:E868:DD4E:84B8:CE11 (talk) 04:42, 15 December 2023 (UTC)