In the summer of 1966, US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara reduced the requirements for US Army.

A year before, the United States began to increase the presence in Vietnam, writes Pavel Kazarin for Ukrainian Pravda. The army was faced with a shortage of soldiers - and then the Ministry of Defense reduced the intellectual and physical qualifications for future military personnel. This allowed the Pentagon over the next four years to additionally mobilize 350 thousand people.

Most of them have the level of IQ below 85. These were people from poor families, the bulk of which threw studies at school. Many of them had to be taught to read right during the basic military training. The Pentagon officially claimed that this program will become a social elevator for people from the lower classes and allow them to join society after the army. But in reality, everything turned out to be completely different.

New cadets not only required more attention during training. Their very presence pulled down the performance of the training platoon. Most of them could not master the technical specialty or become a corporal. They died more often, more often injured and more often attacked their commanders. According to statistics, these draftees were twice as often on the bench of the defendants of the military tribunal. The project was closed in the early 70s, and in American history it remained known as "

We know this phenomenon on the film " The protagonist enters Vietnam in 1966 - when the US Minister of Defense opened him a way to the army like him.

The idea to send in Vietnam of poorly educated and poorly reduced representatives of social bottoms was dictated by elections. If the US Army had not reduced the intellectual qualifying for conscripts, it would have to be forcibly mobilizing students of American colleges. In 1968, the country was waiting for elections, and US President Lindon Johnson did not want to spoil the relationship of his party with the middle grade of the country. True, this did not help him anyway - and on January 20, 1969, the Republican Richard Nixon accepted the presidential oath.

We remembered this story on the way back from the training center. We went there with a platoon - to choose cadets in our company. Of the 80 recruits were able to take away five. The vast majority of the rest resemble the victims of the experiment that the US Army conducted 60 years ago. It's like the water that enters the holds of the army ship - if there are too many of them, then the ship will go to the bottom.

Today, those who did not have time to buy a reservation and a student ticket are sent to the army today. Those who did not have enough money for a linden disability or fake guardianship. Police patrols do not like to become the heroes of Tick-Tok, and therefore check the documents away from the center. .

For the whole of 2022, 7 thousand people went to the SZF in the Ukrainian army.. In 2023 there were 17 thousand. In 2024 already 68. And in the first seven months of 2025, 110 thousand people took the SZF. Moreover, according to the military Ombudsman Olga Reshetilova, most of them are recruits that run away from training centers. All those who were sent to the army for the sake of checking and fulfilling the plan. McNamara's Morons.

Officially, the authorities say that there are no problems with mobilization in the country. That up to 30 thousand people join the army monthly. But it turns out that statistically about every second then leaves for the SZF. And those who reach the parts also do not always become a solution to the problem.

Nine months ago, 50-year-old Yura was sent to our company. He could not walk normally - his spine did not allow him to put on the armor and for me it remained a mystery how he managed to finish the BZVP. The day after arriving in the company, he lay down in the hospital and the next nine months we have not seen him. We only know that he managed to do an operation and undergo two courses of treatment at the expense of the army. Last month, he was transferred from us somewhere to the rear. The doctor at the VLK, who decided to send Yura to the army, made him a great favor - for budget money. If Lindon Johnson has a rake in the world, then we are now on them.

Let's cleanly. Of all the problems that Ukraine faces today, the most important is mobilization.

This is the number one theme for the military. Losses in the army directly depend on the number of soldiers: a brigade, equipped by 80%, loses less people than the one that is equipped by 50%. The completed staff opens up opportunities for rotation, vacations and training. Understanding leads to an increase in the SZCh, losses and breakthroughs. You can endlessly shuffle people, but from this they do not get any more.

This is the number one theme for civilian. The agenda changes your life and becomes a test for the family. The unknown scares, social networks replicate panic and each non -resistant lives in an atmosphere of anxiety. The media write only about violations of the norm, so the only civilian news about mobilization is the personnel of power beading.

This is the number one theme for the state. Weapons, money and people are needed to protect the country. And if the first and second can give us allies, then the only people who are able to protect Ukraine live in our country. If at some point the enemy breaks through the front, then historians of the future will write that the reason for the defeat of Ukraine was the unwillingness of Ukrainians to protect it.

At the same time, the structural unit of the ground forces is engaged in the solution of the most important problem of the country today. Not the Ministry of Defense. Not a cabinet of ministers. Not the president’s office. The question on which the survival of Ukraine depends on is given to one of the branches of the troops.

These people do not have the right to legislative initiative. Ground troops do not develop a politician and their implementation. The topic of mobilization was handed to them only because they are in uniform and do not discuss orders. While they are engaged in an unpopular topic, everyone else may not worry about their own rating.

Sailors from the lower deck are engaged in the coordination of the salvation of the ship, which has received a hole, because the rest of the team is busy with more important things. In the fourth year of the war, this cannot be explained by anything but reluctance to take responsibility. Politicians continue to think about elections to which the country may not live.

The president recently announced that there would be no demobilization. That everyone will serve before victory. In 2025, this news no longer looks like a revelation. In order for the service life to become a reality, it was necessary to start preparing in advance.

Demobilization - even temporary - means that in addition to the monthly planned 30 thousand mobilized ones, you need to get another one and a half hundred - to replace those who will have to go to the rear. Find, mobilize, skip through BZVP, distribute in parts, then again pass through Fakhov a hound, then give at least six months so that they gain experience from veterans. The only preparation of the shift could stretch for a year and a half. Would start in the 22nd, in the 24th conditions could arise for rotation. But now in the yard is the 25th.

And the problem is that the state cannot solve not only demobilization. In addition, it cannot decide on full -fledged up. Any topic related to the summons has become so unpopular that politicians try to avoid it with all their might. The Party of the Cules has become so influential that the authorities and the opposition do not risk it to quarrel. Issues on which the survival of the country depends, no one except the military is discussing.

Will anyone be mobilized besides the military? Will they put things in order with the reservation system? Fake students? Linden disabled people and fake guardians?

Will there be systemic work with the slope? Whether someone will decide to tighten responsibility? Whether the SBU will come to visit those who are campaigning against mobilization on social networks?

Will the first persons decide on an honest conversation with the country? Will the state begin to work with different audiences aimed at? Whether the conscripts will offer transparency and predictability in exchange for responsibility? Will those who are not afraid to entrust the drone for several million hryvnias to the army? Or and continue to send people to brigades who can only be given out a shovel?

Conferences about the " While mobilization is on the principle of " She became such an unpopular topic that she was finally given to those who are not sorry. That is the military. As a result, water continues to flow into army holds.

We found ourselves in a situation where a deficit of justice was the main deficiency. Когда выживание страны зависит от людей, на которых возложили больше обязанностей, чем дали прав. When politicians worry about the opinion of those on whom the fate of the war does not depend. When some think about survival, and others about the election. Когда никто не хочет замечать, что бусификация – это реакция на неготовность людей приходить по повесткам. If tomorrow they introduce a bill on tightening mobilization tomorrow, voting for it will become the main test for sanity. There is a suspicion that most deputies will not pass it.

The United States could afford to mobilize during the Vietnam War - because the survival of the United States did not depend on this war.

We can only envy them.