Time travel back to 1970

The smarter they are, the better they
will perform
GI Schmo
How low can Army recruiters go?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Monday, Jan. 9, 2006, at 5:06 PM ET
Three months ago, I wrote that the war in Iraq was wrecking the U.S. Army, and since then the evidence has only mounted, steeply. Faced with repeated failures to meet its recruitment targets, the Army has had to lower its standards dramatically. First it relaxed restrictions against high-school drop-outs. Then it started letting in more applicants who score in the lowest third on the armed forces aptitude test—a group, known as Category IV recruits, who have been kept to exceedingly small numbers, as a matter of firm policy, for the past 20 years. (There is also a Category V—those who score in the lowest 10th percentile. They have always been ineligible for service in the armed forces and, presumably, always will be.)
The bad news is twofold. First, the number of Category IV recruits is starting to skyrocket. Second, a new study compellingly demonstrates that, in all realms of military activity, intelligence does matter. Smarter soldiers and units perform their tasks better; dumber ones do theirs worse.
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In response to the tightening trends, on Sept. 20, 2005, the Defense Department released DoD Instruction 1145.01, which allows 4 percent of each year's recruits to be Category IV applicants—up from the 2 percent limit that had been in place since the mid-1980s. Even so, in October, the Army had such a hard time filling its slots that the floodgates had to be opened; 12 percent of that month's active-duty recruits were Category IV. November was another disastrous month; Army officials won't even say how many Cat IV applicants they took in, except to acknowledge that the percentage was in "double digits."
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Smarter also turns out to be cheaper. One study examined how many Patriot missiles various Army air-defense units had to fire in order to destroy 10 targets. Units with Category I personnel had to fire 20 missiles. Those with Category II had to fire 21 missiles. Category IIIA: 22. Category IIIB: 23. Category IV: 24 missiles. In other words, to perform the same task, Category IV units chewed up 20 percent more hardware than Category I units. For this particular task, since each Patriot missile costs about $2 million, they also chewed up $8 million more of the Army's procurement budget.
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Then again, viewed from another angle, this would double the Army's least desirable soldiers. These are the soldiers that the Army has long shut out of its ranks; that it is now recruiting avidly, out of sheer desperation; and that—according to the military's own studies—seriously degrade the competence of every unit they end up joining. No, things haven't gone to hell in a handbasket, but they're headed in that direction. Every Army officer knows this. And that's why many of them want the United States to get out of Iraq.
Degrading comeptence are nice words. My Lai isn't so nice.
The soldiers who murdered the residents of My Lai 4 were drafted under Project 100,000. The Americal (23rd) Division was the last division formed in Vietnam and had last call on soldiers. The better units, like the 1st Cav and the Airborne, had their pick of the better recruits. But the Americal was troubled during it's entire stay in Vietnam. Part of that was due to the low caliber of soldier in the the ranks.
What was Project 100,000?
On 10-1-66, Mcnamara launched P/100000 in response to Pres Johnson's War on Poverty. Under this program, DoD began accepting men, as volunteers or draftees, who would not qualify for military service under previous aptitude and medical standards. The Office of the SecDefense outlined 3 main purposes for the project: > Greater equity in spreading the opportunities and obligations of military service;
> Recognition of the unique capability of the military training establishment to produce fully satisfactory servicemen among culturally disadvantaged men who had previously been deferred;
> Foresighted military manpower planning. The manpower goal of P/100000 was to accept 40,000 men under relaxed standards during the 1st year and 100,000 per year thereafter. Approximately 91% of these "New Standards Men," as they were called, came in under lowered aptitude/education standards, and 9% entered under lowered physical standards (i.e., with readily remediated physical defects). This testimony "focuses only on the L/A group.
Under P/100000, aptitude standards were relaxed, but not eliminated. Men with AFQT scores in CatV were still not eligible. The P/100000 men were a subset of those accessions who had AFQT scores in CatIV. That is, some CatIV men who were high school grads were eligible under previous standards, because aptitude requirements are less stringent for grads than for non-grads. In addition, some CatIV non-grads had high enough scores on other tests used for job assignment, such as the Army Qualification Battery, that they also were eligible under preexisting standards. Therefore, not all CatIV accessions were New Standards Men [NSM].
DoD established the policy that P/100000 participants were to meet the same in-service performance standards as other accessions. The individual Services were to provide help, if needed, during training to enable the L/A trainees to meet criteria for retention and advancement in service. Thus, limited remedial literacy programs were developed and training methods were modified. It should be noted that in 1964 DoD had originally submitted a proposal to Congress for a smaller but more direct remediation program called the Special Training Enlistment Program (STEP). This plan called for 6 months of remedial education and extended combat training for men who had been rejected for enlistment; after successful completion of the program they would join operational units. Congress decided not to fund this program because of reluctance to have the Services involved with social projects not directly related to their primary mission. Thus, P/100000 was ultimately conducted instead.
1 goal of P/100000 was to benefit the individual when he returned to the civilian job market, by providing training and experience while he was in service. Many NSM were assigned to "soft skill" areas such as Food Service, Supply, or Wire Communications -- areas which did not require extensive technical training, but which had civilian counterparts. At the behest of Pres Johnson, to help pave the path to productive careers, a joint Defense/Dept of Labor venture -- Project Transition -- was initiated in late 1967. Under this program, personnel nearing the end of their tours could receive counseling and enter selected vocational training courses or educational upgrading programs. Unfortunately, this program was rather limited; it was a voluntary program, it was not available at all military installations, and it was not conducted overseas. P/100000 was unusual both in its scope and in the extent to which it was monitored. A database was set up to record the characteristics and the performance of NSM. Each Service also supplied info on a control group composed of individuals who qualified for service under preexisting standards. The performance of the NSM could then be compared with the controls to determine the impact of P/100000 on military performance levels. Passage of the FY 1972 DoD Appropriations Act, which in effect prohibited the use of aptitude quotas, resulted in the termination of P/100000 in 12- 1971.
By that time, 354,000 L/A men had entered the Services under the program. Of these, 54% were volunteers and 46% were draftees. The men who entered under P/100000 were on average 20 years of age, about half came from the South, and a substantial proportion (about 41%) were minorities. The average reading ability of these men was at the 6th grade level with 13% reading below the 4th grade level.'
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The vets interviewed were asked to identify the 1st and (if any) 2d kinds of training they received while in the military, as well as their military occupational specialty (or MOS). Over half of the respondents had received training in Infantry, Gun Crew, or Seaman specialties, a finding that reflects both the needs of the Services at the time, and the predominance of Army and Marine Corps vets in our sample. In both of these Services, Infantry specialties are the largest occupational areas. This finding, along with the relatively high concentrations reported in Electrical and Mechanical Equipment Repair (13%) and Service and Supply (12%), also reflects the effort which was made to identify lower skill occupational specialties and/or training courses that would be suitable for L/A individuals. For instance, automotive mechanics made up nearly half of those in the Electrical and Mechanical Repair occupational area, while over 80% of those in Service and Supply were vehicle operators or food service personnel. This policy is also demonstrated by the low to nonexistent participation of these L/A men in Electronic EQuipment Repair, Health Care, and Other Technical and Allied specialties, the latter including such occupations as Weather Specialists and Drafters.
posted by Steve @ 12:06:00 AM