DGS49
Diamond Member
When I was in the Army during the Vietnam adventure I "worked" in Personnel, and was privy to a lot of information about recruits and soldiers, and took an interest in the various test scores, all of which were displayed on the Form DD 20, although few knew what the abbreviations stood for.
One tidbit that might be generally interesting is how the Army addressed AFQT scores. AFQT scores are a reflection of the percentile ranking of the test takers. A score of 50 means that half of the applicants scored better and half scored worse. The Army would not accept anyone with a score below 15. (This corresponds to an IQ around 83-84). In 1970, they decided to lower the standards to accept (and DRAFT) young men with scores as low as 7, assigning the soldiers with scores between 7-15 as security guards and low-level grunts in Vietnam. This was the program that resulted in Cassius Clay being drafted. Enough said on that matter. The experiment ended in catastrophe, with more than half of those individuals (who carried Service Numbers beginning with "US67...") being killed in action in Vietnam.
But it's a new day now. Recognizing that those who take the AFQT are HS grads, and they have volunteered to take it, it does constitute a random sampling of American Yoot; it's actually a fairly select group. The minimum acceptable scores for the services today are, Army 31, Marines 32, Navy 35, Air Force 40 , Coast Guard 45.
Those with sufficient interest can learn the racial component. The average "white" score is 55, Hispanic 44, and Black 38. It is no wonder that they are having a difficult time filling their quotas for BIPOC's. No doubt the new Administration will be more flexible where they think they can get away with it.
One tidbit that might be generally interesting is how the Army addressed AFQT scores. AFQT scores are a reflection of the percentile ranking of the test takers. A score of 50 means that half of the applicants scored better and half scored worse. The Army would not accept anyone with a score below 15. (This corresponds to an IQ around 83-84). In 1970, they decided to lower the standards to accept (and DRAFT) young men with scores as low as 7, assigning the soldiers with scores between 7-15 as security guards and low-level grunts in Vietnam. This was the program that resulted in Cassius Clay being drafted. Enough said on that matter. The experiment ended in catastrophe, with more than half of those individuals (who carried Service Numbers beginning with "US67...") being killed in action in Vietnam.
But it's a new day now. Recognizing that those who take the AFQT are HS grads, and they have volunteered to take it, it does constitute a random sampling of American Yoot; it's actually a fairly select group. The minimum acceptable scores for the services today are, Army 31, Marines 32, Navy 35, Air Force 40 , Coast Guard 45.
Those with sufficient interest can learn the racial component. The average "white" score is 55, Hispanic 44, and Black 38. It is no wonder that they are having a difficult time filling their quotas for BIPOC's. No doubt the new Administration will be more flexible where they think they can get away with it.