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For those of us who lived through the havoc created by the MacNamra defense dept, and its aftermath, most of the memories are more bitter than sweet.

The nickname "whiz kids" was not given out of admiration, rather the opposite.

If the whiz kids every had any really good ideas, I don't recall what they were. Seemed like about everything they wanted done wasn't a good idea (though it could be done) and I remember some that were barking stupid.

Don't know if they were Lord of the Rings fans, or even if they knew the stories existed, but they were hard into "One Ring to Rule them ALL" as a concept. They pushed hard to get the military all using the same equiptment, one rifle, one plane, etc. On paper that looks good, in the real world, not so much.

One fellow I remember reading claimed that the MacNamara Defense Dept actually took more weapons and weapon systems out of action than a Soviet nuclear first strike would have. That's probably overstating things a bit, but most of us felt it wasn't all that far off.

There are probably entire books written about the actions and the power struggles that went on between various factions in the military and the govt during those years. One thing I do know, with certainty is that the poor line troops were "lab rats" having each new idea tested on us, and blamed if we couldn't make it work, by one group and blamed by another faction if we could make it work, no matter how badly it did work.

And, tragically, soldiers were killed and injured that didn't need to be, while the various factions did things to "prove their point".

The story of the M16 isn't the only place this happened, but its probably the best known and most tragic.