Does anyone think George Bush can be beat in the election?

[lucky wilbury]

Re: Re: Does anyone think George Bush can be beat in the election?

Originally posted by Va Beach VH Fan
Don't ya just love that Sarge ??

These fuckers that pussied their way out of REAL military service (don't give me that TX ANG horseshit) but have the audacity to deploy troops like they're pizza delivery boys....

And yes, I include one William Jefferson Clinton in that group.... I don't want it to sound like strictly an anti-Bush sentiment.....

I know I've said that before, but it really, really ticks me off....

air national guard people fight in wars. they were in vietnam as well as operation southern and northern watch operations in afghanistan and operation iraqi freedom amoung many others.

[lucky wilbury]

i was also going to say in my other post is the reason i choose that site is becasue wafflepoweredhoward.com wasen't working

[ELVIS]

I would rather have Bill Clinton back in office than Howard Dean...

[BigBadBrian]

Re: Re: Does anyone think George Bush can be beat in the election?

Originally posted by Va Beach VH Fan
Don't ya just love that Sarge ??

These fuckers that pussied their way out of REAL military service (don't give me that TX ANG horseshit) but have the audacity to deploy troops like they're pizza delivery boys....

And yes, I include one William Jefferson Clinton in that group.... I don't want it to sound like strictly an anti-Bush sentiment.....

I know I've said that before, but it really, really ticks me off....

That's the way it's going to be until we make active military service a requirement and that'll never happen. Only Kerry and Wes Clark fit the bill on that account.

I got sick and damn tired of deploying to go to some piss-ant action to cover up for Clinton getting a hummer.

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by EAST COAST
all the guys running in the dem primaries are runnin on desperation. kerry can not keep his foot out of his mouth. lieb gets stabbed in the back by gore. clark says bubba clinton endorsed him, 5 minutes later bubba says nope. dean cant get his stories straight. talk about a disfunctional party. the best chance at even touching g.w. in an election is hillary,

Actually if no clear winner is decided come nomination time, she could steal the nomination without even doing the primaries. If the first vote is dead-locked and there is no clear winner, delegates can vote for whoever they want to on succeeding votes. She could throw her wig into the ring and announce her candidacy. I think a lot of delegates would switch and she'd get the nod. It'd be funny to hear what Dean would say about that, not to mention watching his facial expressions.

[ELVIS]

I think I would trust Hillary before Doctor Dean...

[Seshmeister]

Re: Re: Re: Does anyone think George Bush can be beat in the election?

Originally posted by lucky wilbury
air national guard people fight in wars. they were in vietnam as well as operation southern and northern watch operations in afghanistan and operation iraqi freedom amoung many others.

LMFAO!

Comon LW you usually come across as an intelligent poster....

[lucky wilbury]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Does anyone think George Bush can be beat in the election?

Originally posted by Seshmeister
LMFAO!

Comon LW you usually come across as an intelligent poster....

what they do. don't you remember the threads about the air national guard people bombing the canadians in afghanistan months ago? just to clear things up operation southern and northern watch was in iraq

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Re: Re: Re: Does anyone think George Bush can be beat in the election?

Originally posted by lucky wilbury
air national guard people fight in wars. they were in vietnam as well as operation southern and northern watch operations in afghanistan and operation iraqi freedom amoung many others.

Lucky, I did NOT say that ANG troops don't fight in wars. I'm well aware of that, and have met several of them over the years....

But Dubya sure as hell did not... Not even close....

And there was this little skirmish called Vietnam going on....

As a matter of fact, it seems that Dubya had trouble drilling with his unit.... Take a gander at this;

http://web.archive.org/web/20000619121358/http://www.boston.com/news/politics/campaign2000/news/One_year_gap_in_Bush_s_Guard_duty+.shtml

One-year gap in Bush's National Guard duty
No record of airman at drills from 1972-73

By Walter V. Robinson, Globe Staff, 5/23/2000

AUSTIN, Texas - After George W. Bush became governor in 1995, the Houston Air National Guard unit he had served with during the Vietnam War years honored him for his work, noting that he flew an F-102 fighter-interceptor until his discharge in October 1973.

During his first four years in the Texas Air National Guard, according to his military records, Bush had a busy schedule of full-time training and drills:

May 28, 1968: Bush enlists as an Airman Basic in the 147th Fighter-Interceptor Group, Ellington Air Force Base, Houston, and is selected to attend pilot training.

July 12, 1968: A three-member board of officers decides that Bush should get a direct commission as a second lieutenant after competing airman's basic training.

July 14 to Aug. 25, 1968: Bush attends six weeks of basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.

Sept. 4, 1968: Bush is commissioned a second lieutenant and takes an 8-week leave to work on a Senate campaign in Florida.

Nov. 25, 1968 to Nov. 28, 1969: Bush attends and graduates from flight school at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia.

December 1969 to June 27, 1970: Bush trains full-time to be an F-102 pilot at Ellington Air Force Base.

July 1970 to April 16, 1972: Bush, as a certified fighter pilot, attends frequent drills and alerts at Ellington.

During his fifth year as a guardsman, Bush's records show no sign he appeared for duty.
May 24, 1972: Bush, who has moved to Alabama to work on a US Senate race, gets permission to serve with a reserve unit in Alabama. But headquarters decided Bush must serve with a more active unit.

Sept. 5, 1972: Bush is granted permission to do his Guard duty at the 187th Tactical Recon Group in Montgomery. But Bush's record shows no evidence he did the duty, and the unit commander says he never showed up.

November 1972 to April 30, 1973: Bush returns to Houston, but apparently not to his Air Force unit.

May 2, 1973: The two lieutenant colonels in charge of Bush's unit in Houston cannot rate him for the prior 12 months, saying he has not been at the unit in that period.

May to July 1973: Bush, after special orders are issued for him to report for duty, logs 36 days of duty.

July 30, 1973: His last day in uniform, according to his records.

Oct. 1, 1973: A month after Bush starts at Harvard Business School, he is formally discharged from the Texas Air National Guard -- eight months before his six-year term expires.

And Bush himself, in his 1999 autobiography, ''A Charge to Keep,'' recounts the thrills of his pilot training, which he completed in June 1970. ''I continued flying with my unit for the next several years,'' the governor wrote.

But both accounts are contradicted by copies of Bush's military records, obtained by the Globe. In his final 18 months of military service in 1972 and 1973, Bush did not fly at all. And for much of that time, Bush was all but unaccounted for: For a full year, there is no record that he showed up for the periodic drills required of part-time guardsmen.

Bush, who declined to be interviewed on the issue, said through a spokesman that he has ''some recollection'' of attending drills that year, but maybe not consistently.

From May to November 1972, Bush was in Alabama working in a US Senate campaign, and was required to attend drills at an Air National Guard unit in Montgomery. But there is no evidence in his record that he did so. And William Turnipseed, the retired general who commanded the Alabama unit back then, said in an interview last week that Bush never appeared for duty there.

After the election, Bush returned to Houston. But seven months later, in May 1973, his two superior officers at Ellington Air Force Base could not perform his annual evaluation covering the year from May 1, 1972 to April 30, 1973 because, they wrote, ''Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of this report.''

Bush, they mistakenly concluded, had been training with the Alabama unit for the previous 12 months. Both men have since died. But Ellington's top personnel officer at the time, retired Colonel Rufus G. Martin, said he had believed that First Lieutenant Bush completed his final year of service in Alabama.

A Bush spokesman, Dan Bartlett, said after talking with the governor that Bush recalls performing some duty in Alabama and ''recalls coming back to Houston and doing [Guard] duty, though he does not recall if it was on a consistent basis.''

Noting that Bush, by that point, was no longer flying, Bartlett added, ''It's possible his presence and role became secondary.''

Last night, Mindy Tucker, another Bush campaign aide, asserted that the governor ''fulfilled all of his requirements in the Guard.'' If he missed any drills, she said, he made them up later on.

Under Air National Guard rules at the time, guardsmen who missed duty could be reported to their Selective Service Board and inducted into the Army as draftees.

If Bush's interest in Guard duty waned, as spokesman Bartlett hinted, the records and former Guard officials suggest that Bush's unit was lackadaisical in holding him to his commitment. Many states, Texas among them, had a record during the Vietnam War of providing a haven in the Guard for the sons of the well-connected, and a tendency to excuse shirking by those with political connections.

Those who trained and flew with Bush, until he gave up flying in April 1972, said he was among the best pilots in the 111th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron. In the 22-month period between the end of his flight training and his move to Alabama, Bush logged numerous hours of duty, well above the minimum requirements for so-called ''weekend warriors.''

Indeed, in the first four years of his six-year commitment, Bush spent the equivalent of 21 months on active duty, including 18 months in flight school. His Democratic opponent, Vice President Al Gore, who enlisted in the Army for two years and spent five months in Vietnam, logged only about a month more active service, since he won an early release from service.

Still, the puzzling gap in Bush's military service is likely to heighten speculation about the conspicuous underachievement that marked the period between his 1968 graduation from Yale University and his 1973 entry into Harvard Business School. It is speculation that Bush has helped to fuel: For example, he refused for months last year to say whether he had ever used illegal drugs. Subsequently, however, Bush amended his stance, saying that he had not done so since 1974.

The period in 1972 and 1973 when Bush sidestepped his military obligation coincides with a well-publicized incident during the 1972 Christmas holidays: Bush had a confrontation with his father after he took his younger brother, Marvin, out drinking and returned to the family's Washington home after knocking over some garbage cans on the ride home.

In his autobiography, Bush says that his decision to go to business school the following September was ''a turning point for me.''

Assessing Bush's military service three decades later is no easy task: Some of his superiors are no longer alive. Others declined to comment, or, understandably, cannot recall details about Bush's comings and goings. And as Bush has risen in public life over the last several years, Texas military officials have put many of his records off-limits and heavily redacted many other pages, ostensibly because of privacy rules.

But 160 pages of his records, assembled by the Globe from a variety of sources and supplemented by interviews with former Guard officials, paint a picture of an Air Guardsman who enjoyed favored treatment on several occasions.

The ease of Bush's entry into the Air Guard was widely reported last year. At a time when such billets were coveted and his father was a Houston congressman, Bush vaulted to the top of a waiting list of 500. Bush and his father have denied that he received any preferential treatment. But last year, Ben Barnes, who was speaker of the Texas House in 1968, said in a sworn deposition in a civil lawsuit that he called Guard officials seeking a Guard slot for Bush after a friend of Bush's father asked him to do so.

Before he went to basic training, Bush was approved for an automatic commission as a second lieutenant and assignment to flight school despite a score of just 25 percent on a pilot aptitude test. Such commissions were not uncommon, although most often they went to prospective pilots who had college ROTC courses or prior Air Force experience. Bush had neither.

In interviews last week, Guard officials from that era said Bush leapfrogged over other applicants because few applicants were willing to commit to the 18 months of flight training or the inherent dangers of flying.

As a pilot, the future governor appeared to do well. After eight weeks of basic training in the summer of 1968 - and a two-month break to work on a Senate race in Florida - Bush attended 55 weeks of flight school at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, from November 1968 to November 1969, followed by five months of full-time training on the F-102 back at Ellington.

Retired Colonel Maurice H. Udell, Bush's instructor in the F-102, said he was impressed with Bush's talent and his attitude. ''He had his boots shined, his uniform pressed, his hair cut and he said, `Yes, sir' and `No, sir,''' the instructor recalled.

Said Udell, ''I would rank him in the top 5 percent of pilots I knew. And in the thinking department, he was in the top 1 percent. He was very capable and tough as a boot.''

But 22 months after finishing his training, and with two years left on his six-year commitment, Bush gave up flying - for good, it would turn out. He sought permission to do ''equivalent training'' at a Guard unit in Alabama, where he planned to work for several months on the Republican Senate campaign of Winton Blount, a friend of Bush's father. The proposed move took Bush off flight status, since no Alabama Guard unit had the F-102 he was trained to fly.

At that point, starting in May 1972, First Lieutenant Bush began to disappear from the Guard's radar screen.

When the Globe first raised questions about this period earlier this month, Bartlett, Bush's spokesman, referred a reporter to Albert Lloyd Jr., a retired colonel who was the Texas Air Guard's personnel director from 1969 to 1995.

Lloyd, who a year ago helped the Bush campaign make sense of the governor's military records, said Bush's aides were concerned about the gap in his records back then.

On May 24, 1972, after he moved to Alabama, Bush made a formal request to do his equivalent training at the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. Two days later, that unit's commander, Lieutenant Colonel Reese H. Bricken, agreed to have Bush join his unit temporarily.

In Houston, Bush's superiors approved. But a higher headquarters disapproved, noting that Bricken's unit did not have regular drills.

''We met just one weeknight a month. We were only a postal unit. We had no airplanes. We had no pilots. We had no nothing,'' Bricken said in an interview.

Last week, Lloyd said he is mystified why Bush's superiors at the time approved duty at such a unit.

Inexplicably, months went by with no resolution to Bush's status - and no Guard duty. Bush's evident disconnection from his Guard duties was underscored in August, when he was removed from flight status for failing to take his annual flight physical.

Finally, on Sept. 5, 1972, Bush requested permission to do duty for September, October, and November at the 187th Tactical Recon Group in Montgomery. Permission was granted, and Bush was directed to report to Turnipseed, the unit's commander.

In interviews last week, Turnipseed and his administrative officer at the time, Kenneth K. Lott, said they had no memory of Bush ever reporting.

''Had he reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not,'' Turnipseed said. ''I had been in Texas, done my flight training there. If we had had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would have remembered.''

Lloyd, the retired Texas Air Guard official, said he does not know whether Bush performed duty in Alabama. ''If he did, his drill attendance should have been certified and sent to Ellington, and there would have been a record. We cannot find the records to show he fulfilled the requirements in Alabama,'' he said.

Indeed, Bush's discharge papers list his service and duty station for each of his first four years in the Air Guard. But there is no record of training listed after May 1972, and no mention of any service in Alabama. On that discharge form, Lloyd said, ''there should have been an entry for the period between May 1972 and May 1973.''

Said Lloyd, ''It appeared he had a bad year. He might have lost interest, since he knew he was getting out.''

In an effort last year to solve the puzzle, Lloyd said he scoured Guard records, where he found two ''special orders'' commanding Bush to appear for active duty on nine days in May 1973. That is the same month that Lieutenant Colonel William D. Harris Jr. and Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian effectively declared Bush missing from duty.

In Bush's annual efficiency report, dated May 2, 1973, the two supervising pilots did not rate Bush for the prior year, writing, ''Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of report. A civilian occupation made it necessary for him to move to Montgomery, Alabama. He cleared this base on 15 May 1972 and has been performing equivalent training in a non-flying status with the 187 Tac Recon Gp, Dannelly ANG Base, Alabama.''

Asked about that declaration, campaign spokesman Bartlett said Bush told him that since he was no longer flying, he was doing ''odds and ends'' under different supervisors whose names he could not recall.

But retired colonel Martin, the unit's former administrative officer, said he too thought Bush had been in Alabama for that entire year. Harris and Killian, he said, would have known if Bush returned to duty at Ellington. And Bush, in his autobiography, identifies the late colonel Killian as a friend, making it even more likely that Killian knew where Bush was.

Lieutenant Bush, to be sure, had gone off flying status when he went to Alabama. But had he returned to his unit in November 1972, there would have been no barrier to him flying again, except passing a flight physical. Although the F-102 was being phased out, his unit's records show that Guard pilots logged thousands of hours in the F-102 in 1973.

During his search, Lloyd said, the only other paperwork he discovered was a single torn page bearing Bush's social security number and numbers awarding some points for Guard duty. But the partial page is undated. If it represents the year in question, it leaves unexplained why Bush's two superior officers would have declared him absent for the full year.

There is no doubt that Bush was in Houston in late 1972 and early 1973. During that period, according to Bush's autobiography, he held a civilian job working for an inner-city, antipoverty program in the city.

Lloyd, who has studied the records extensively, said he is an admirer of the governor and believes ''the governor honestly served his country and fulfilled his commitment.''

But Lloyd said it is possible that since Bush had his sights set on discharge and the unit was beginning to replace the F-102s, Bush's superiors told him he was not ''in the flow chart. Maybe George Bush took that as a signal and said, `Hell, I'm not going to bother going to drills.'

''Well, then it comes rating time, and someone says, `Oh...he hasn't fulfilled his obligation.' I'll bet someone called him up and said, `George, you're in a pickle. Get your ass down here and perform some duty.' And he did,'' Lloyd said.

That would explain, Lloyd said, the records showing Bush cramming so many drills into May, June, and July 1973. During those three months, Bush spent 36 days on duty.

Bush's last day in uniform before he moved to Cambridge was July 30, 1973. His official release from active duty was dated Oct. 1, 1973, eight months before his six-year commitment was scheduled to end.

Officially, the period between May 1972 and May 1973 remains unaccounted for. In November 1973, responding to a request from the headquarters of the Air National Guard for Bush's annual evaluation for that year, Martin, the Ellington administrative officer, wrote, ''Report for this period not available for administrative reasons.''

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Re: Re: Re: Does anyone think George Bush can be beat in the election?

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
That's the way it's going to be until we make active military service a requirement and that'll never happen. Only Kerry and Wes Clark fit the bill on that account.

I got sick and damn tired of deploying to go to some piss-ant action to cover up for Clinton getting a hummer.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to make it a requirement Brian, but I guess it'd be wishful thinking to think that Americans would consider a Presidential candidate that has actually served on Active Duty....

[John Ashcroft]

Hey V.A. That slander on Bush has been discredited so many times it gets dizzying.

Even the NY Times didn't find any evidence of desertion or dereliction of duty. The article you posted relies in "gaps" in military records. Well hell! I guess there are probably "gaps" in my 10 years of service as well! The military is notorious for good record keeping, right? In fact, everyone in the military celebrates the competency of the various finance departments throughout the services! We were thinking of making a special holiday for them in the Air Force!

[lucky wilbury]

i have seen that article for the globe before and these two one from the now defunked george mag and another from the ang dispute it:

http://www2.georgemag.com/bush.html

The Real Military Record of George W. Bush: Not Heroic, but Not AWOL, Either
By Peter Keating and Karthik Thyagarajan


For more than a year, controversy about George W. Bush's Air National Guard record has bubbled through the press. Interest in the topic has spiked in recent days, as at least two websites have launched stories essentially calling Bush AWOL in 1972 and 1973. For example, in "Finally, the Truth about Bush's Military Record" on TomPaine.com, Marty Heldt writes, "Bush's long absence from the records comes to an end one week after he failed to comply with an order to attend 'Annual Active Duty Training' starting at the end of May 1973... Nothing indicates in the records that he ever made up the time he missed." And in Bush's Military Record Reveals Grounding and Absence for Two Full Years" on Democrats.com, Robert A. Rogers states: "Bush never actually reported in person for the last two years of his service - in direct violation of two separate written orders."

Neither is correct.

It's time to set the record straight. The following analysis, which relies on National Guard documents, extensive interviews with military officials and previously unpublished evidence of Bush's whereabouts in the summer and fall of 1972, is the first full chronology of Bush's military record. Its basic conclusions: Bush may have received favorable treatment to get into the Guard, served irregularly after the spring of 1972 and got an expedited discharge, but he did accumulate the days of service required of him for his ultimate honorable discharge.

At the Republican convention in Philadelphia, George W. Bush declared: "Our military is low on parts, pay and morale. If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report, 'Not ready for duty, sir.'" Bush says he is the candidate who can "rebuild our military and prepare our armed forces for the future." On what direct military experience does he make such claims?

George W. Bush applied to join the Texas Air National Guard on May 27, 1968, less than two weeks before he graduated from Yale University. The country was at war in Vietnam, and at that time, just months after the bloody Tet Offensive, an estimated 100,000 Americans were on waiting lists to join Guard units across the country. Bush was sworn in on the day he applied.

Ben Barnes, former speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, stated in September 1999 that in late 1967 or early 1968, he asked a senior official in the Texas Air National Guard to help Bush get into the Guard as a pilot. Barnes said he did so at the behest of Sidney Adger, a Houston businessman and friend of former President George H. W. Bush, then a Texas congressman. Despite Barnes's admission, former President Bush has denied pulling strings for his son, and retired Colonel Walter Staudt, George W. Bush's first commander, insists: "There was no special treatment."

The younger Bush fulfilled two years of active duty and completed pilot training in June 1970. During that time and in the two years that followed, Bush flew the F-102, an interceptor jet equipped with heat-seeking missiles that could shoot down enemy planes. His commanding officers and peers regarded Bush as a competent pilot and enthusiastic Guard member. In March 1970, the Texas Air National Guard issued a press release trumpeting his performance: "Lt. Bush recently became the first Houston pilot to be trained by the 147th [Fighter Group] and to solo in the F-102... Lt. Bush said his father was just as excited and enthusiastic about his solo flight as he was." In Bush's evaluation for the period May 1, 1971 through April 30, 1972, then-Colonel Bobby Hodges, his commanding officer, stated, "I have personally observed his participation, and without exception, his performance has been noteworthy." In the spring of 1972, however, National Guard records show a sudden dropoff in Bush's military activity. Though trained as a pilot at considerable government expense, Bush stopped flying in April 1972 and never flew for the Guard again.

Around that time, Bush decided to go to work for Winton "Red" Blount, a Republican running for the U.S. Senate, in Alabama. Documents from Ellington Air Force Base in Houston state that Bush "cleared this base on 15 May." Shortly afterward, he applied for assignment to the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron in Montgomery, Ala., a unit that required minimal duty and offered no pay. Although that unit's commander was willing to welcome him, on May 31 higher-ups at the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver rejected Bush's request to serve at the 9921st, because it did not offer duty equivalent to his service in Texas. "[A]n obligated Reservist [in this case, Bush] can be assigned to a specific Ready Reserve position only," noted the disapproval memo, a copy of which was sent to Bush. "Therefore, he is ineligible for assignment to an Air Reserve Squadron."

Despite the military's decision, Bush moved to Alabama. Records obtained by Georegemag.com show that the Blount Senate campaign paid Bush about $900 a month from mid-May through mid-November to do advance work and organize events. Neither Bush's annual evaluation nor the Air National Guard's overall chronological listing of his service contain any evidence that he performed Guard duties during that summer.

On or around his 27th birthday, July 6, 1972, Bush did not take his required annual medical exam at his Texas unit. As a consequence, he was suspended from flying military jets. Bush spokesperson Dan Bartlett told Georgemag.com: "You take that exam because you are flying, and he was not flying. The paperwork uses the phrase 'suspended from flying,' but he had no intention of flying at that time."

Some media reports have speculated that Bush took and failed his physical, or that he was grounded as a result of substance abuse. Bush's vagueness on the subject of his past drug use has only abetted such rumors. Bush's commanding officer in Texas, however, denies the charges. "His flying status was suspended because he didn't take the exam,not because he couldn't pass," says Hodges. Asked whether Bush was ever disciplined for using alcohol or illicit drugs, Hodges replied: "No."

On September 5, Bush wrote to then-Colonel Jerry Killian at his original unit in Texas, requesting permission to serve with the 187th Tactical Reconnaisance Group, another Alabama-based unit. "This duty would be for the months of September, October, and November," wrote Bush.

This time his request was approved: 10 days later, the Alabama Guard ordered Bush to report to then-Lieutenant Colonel William Turnipseed at Dannelly Air Force Base in Montgomery on October 7th and 8th. The memo noted that "Lieutenant Bush will not be able to satisfy his flight requirements with our group," since the 187th did not fly F-102s.

The question of whether Bush ever actually served in Alabama has become an issue in the 2000 campaign-the Air Force Times recently reported that "the GOP is trying to locate people who served with Bush in late 1972 ... to see if they can confirm that Bush briefly served with the Alabama Air National Guard." Bush's records contain no evidence that he reported to Dannelly in October. And in telephone interviews with Georgemag.com, neither Turnipseed, Bush's commanding officer, nor Kenneth Lott, then chief personnel officer of the 187th, remembered Bush serving with their unit. "I don't think he showed up," Turnipseed said.

Bush maintains he did serve in Alabama. "Governor Bush specifically remembers pulling duty in Montgomery and respectfully disagrees with the Colonel," says Bartlett. "There's no question it wasn't memorable, because he wasn't flying." In July, the Decatur Daily reported that two former Blount campaign workers recall Bush serving in the Alabama Air National Guard in the fall of 1972. "I remember he actually came back to Alabama for about a week to 10 days several weeks after the campaign was over to complete his Guard duty in the state," stated Emily Martin, a former Alabama resident who said she dated Bush during the time he spent in that state.

After the 1972 election, which Blount lost, Bush moved back to Houston and subsequently began working at P.U.L.L., a community service center for disadvantaged youths. This period of time has also become a matter of controversy, because even though Bush's original unit had been placed on alert duty in October 1972, his superiors in Texas lost track of his whereabouts. On May 2, 1973, Bush's squadron leader in the 147th, Lieutenant Colonel William Harris, Jr. wrote: "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit" for the past year. Harris incorrectly assumed that Bush had been reporting for duty in Alabama all along. He wrote that Bush "has been performing equivalent training in a non-flying status with the 187 Tac Recon Gp, Dannelly ANG Base, Alabama." Base commander Hodges says of Bush's return to Texas: "All I remember is someone saying he came back and made up his days."

Two documents obtained by Georgemag.com indicate that Bush did make up the time he missed during the summer and autumn of 1972. One is an April 23, 1973 order for Bush to report to annual active duty training the following month; the other is an Air National Guard statement of days served by Bush that is torn and undated but contains entries that correspond to the first. Taken together, they appear to establish that Bush reported for duty on nine occasions between November 29, 1972-when he could have been in Alabama-and May 24, 1973. Bush still wasn't flying, but over this span, he did earn nine points of National Guard service from days of active duty and 32 from inactive duty. When added to the 15 so-called "gratuitous" points that every member of the Guard got per year, Bush accumulated 56 points, more than the 50 that he needed by the end of May 1973 to maintain his standing as a Guardsman.

On May 1, Bush was ordered to report for further active duty training, and documents show that he proceeded to cram in another 10 sessions over the next two months. Ultimately, he racked up 19 active duty points of service and 16 inactive duty points by July 30-which, added to his 15 gratuitous points, achieved the requisite total of 50 for the year ending in May 1974.

On October 1, 1973, First Lieutenant George W. Bush received an early honorable discharge so that he could attend Harvard Business School. He was credited with five years, four months and five days of service toward his six-year service obligation.

---------------------

http://www.ngaus.org/ngmagazine/main101.asp

Number 19
January 2001
George W. Bush is the latest in a long line of U.S. presidents who once served in the National Guard.

By Lisa Daniel

By now, most Americans know that President-elect George W. Bush has made history in several ways: He's the son of a former president who took the closest election on record while not taking the popular vote.

But Bush will have another distinction when he is sworn in as the 43rd president Jan. 20: He will be the first former Air Guardsman in the White House and the 19th president to have been a member of the militia or the Guard.

While that distinction may be lost on most civilians, it no doubt has caught the attention of the country's nearly half-million Guardsmen who now wonder what the Bush presidency mean for them.

While presidents don't have the clout over single entities--such as the Guard--they once did, they still wield power in two important ways, says retired Col. Michael Doubler, a former National Guard Bureau historian. First, the president appoints the National Guard Bureau chief. Secondly, the president sets policy and support for the military.

History indicates that presidents who were Guardsmen take an interest in citizen soldiers as commanders in chief, Doubler said.

The list of presidents who served in the militia or National Guard features the four American icons honored at Mount Rushmore: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Other Guard presidents include Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin Harrison, and Harry S Truman.

The last two presidents to have been citizen soldiers--Roosevelt and Truman--were perhaps the ones who did the most to shape the modern National Guard. Roosevelt's first message to Congress after becoming president in 1901 was to get a 'thorough military education,' not just in the regular military, but also the Guard. By the time he left office, Guard units were receiving better pay, equipment and training.

Truman commanded a Missouri Guard artillery battery in France during World War I. Then Capt. Truman told his troops: "I'd rather be here than president of the United States." He later became president in 1945. The Air National Guard was created under his watch.

"What they learned in the Guard had a great impact on decisions they made as presidents," Doubler said. "They learned qualities of giving and receiving orders and they understood military operations."

Still, the expectation that presidents serve in the military before taking office is a mid-20th century phenomenon that began during the Cold War, when the nation maintained a large standing military, Doubler said.

President Clinton was widely criticized for avoiding the draft during the Vietnam War. Bush also was accused of skirting the draft by joining the Texas Air Guard in 1968. He became an F-102 fighter pilot before being discharged as a first lieutenant in 1973.

Doubler says it is unfair to criticize those who joined the Guard during the Vietnam War.

"The government allowed it and in many ways encouraged it," he said "There were a lot of things the government did to authorize people to serve in places other than the front lines."

Bush's drill performance also stirred controversy during the campaign. Some reports charged that he was absent for a year. However, probably the most comprehensive media review of Bush's military records concluded that while he, "served irregularly after the spring of 1972 and got an expedited discharge, he did accumulate the days of service required for him for his ultimate honorable discharge." The review was done by Georgemag.com, the online version of the magazine founded by the late John F. Kennedy Jr. Guardsmen say Bush's service record is not unusual.

"In any six-year time frame you probably can find some problems," says retired Rep. G.V. 'Sonny' Montgomery, D-Miss., founder of the House Guard and Reserve Caucus. "Just learning to fly the F-102 and not getting hurt and not hurting anybody is an accomplishment."


Montgomery called Bush's election, "nothing but a plus for the Guard."

The retired Mississippi National Guard major general supported Bush so strongly for president that he served as co-chair of the Veterans for Bush campaign, even though he is a Democrat. He said that the Guard will improve under Bush's leadership because he understands the life of Guardsmen and he's proud of his service.

[Seshmeister]

So it was just a coincidence that with half a million US troops drafted into the military Bush ends up in the National Guard and the Airforce to boot?

LOL!

Cheers!

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by Seshmeister
So it was just a coincidence that with half a million US troops drafted into the military Bush ends up in the National Guard and the Airforce to boot?

Hey Sesh, what are your feelings on Gore being given a cushy reporter's job, Clinton going to England, and Dean wussing out on a fake medical excuse during the same period? Hmm? :confused:

[Cathedral]

Dean is a guarenteed loser if he wins the nomination. I would be more concerned about Kerry, Gephardt, or Clark winning the nomination because they are the only candidates that can threaten Bush's second term when it comes to defense issues. (Not so much Gephardt on the defense issue. but the people are just desperate enough to vote his ass in)

It really sucks sitting here knowing that all this money is being spent on what we all know to be a useless attempt at unseating a popular President.
We all just have to wait till November to find out how right we are...

The Dems are cooked!

Bush/Cheney in '04!!!