# American soldier crosses into North Korea **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 18, 2023, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-soldier-crosses-into-north-korea/987221 "2023-07-18T16:43:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 165
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2023, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-soldier-crosses-into-north-korea/987221/165 "2023-07-24T22:42:56Z")
Several years ago, I heard about “McNamara’s Morons”, where the IQ required for military enlistment declined drastically, and the character “Zero” in the “Beetle Bailey” comic strip was inspired by this. > [@McNamara's Morons, aka Project 100,000 (recruiting mentally challenged people during Vietnam)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcnamaras-morons-aka-project-100-000-recruiting-mentally-challenged-people-during-vietnam/823872): > > I had never heard of this until last night; in short, during the Vietnam era, and to a lesser extent in the Iraq/Afghanistan era, the military lowered their standards to a point where people with significantly subnormal IQs were admitted into the military, and usually given KP or other noncombat duties, if they made it through boot camp at all. Here’s a 36-minute speech from someone who wrote a book about it. [[McNamara's Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam War] ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J2VwFDV4-g) If you… --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-soldier-crosses-into-north-korea/987221)._