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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Arthur Radley who wrote (259038)	5/28/2002 10:46:34 AM
From: sandintoes	Respond to of 769667

For a man who is so supportive of the military you don't seem to know anything about it.... Maybe that's because I'm a woman!

To: Arthur Radley who wrote (259038)	5/28/2002 11:13:04 AM
From: gao seng	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

No, G. W. Bush was never AWOL. Here are the facts as I know them. G. W. Bush (GWB) applied for and was accepted into the Texas Air National Guard F-102 fighter squadron on graduation from Yale. I'm not going into how he was selected and what the priorities are for selection, but he was not moved in front of others to avoid the draft. the waiting list that many speak of was for ENLISTED positions for people without prior service, not pilot officer positions, particularly for college grads. At that time, the Air National Guard still commissioned folks without a college degree. GWB went to the complete active duty officer candidate school, the 90 wonder school right along with the active duty types, and then went to the complete US Air Force initial entry flight school, then went on to the fighter pilot school and transitioned into Convair F-102, a second line fighter at the time, it having been replaced by the later Convair F-106, a faster aircraft with a bigger engine, but very similar in appearance and mission. GWB flew with the Texas Air Guard for four years achieving exemplary ratings by his commanding officers. I might point out that the Air National Guard squadrons with interceptors such as the F-102, which had no guns on it, just missiles including the nuclear tipped Genie air-to-air missiles. Yes, the Air National Guard once had nukes right at their bases. That's not true today, for a variety of reasons, but I digress. At about his forth year, GWB moved to Alabama to work for someone running for US Senate, he applied for a transfer to a unit in Alabama for the duration of his stay there. For reasons the Texas Guard won't say, that request was refused. That's a very unusual event, I was in the Guard for eight years and never saw a request like that turned down. What they did do,. however, was grant him authorized absences for the whole time, absences he later made up in full on his return to Texas. GWB was never marked AWOL, and no record exists either in Texas or in the National Guard Bureau in Aberdeen, Maryland that he was ever anything but in completely legal attendance. Another thing anyone in the guard can do is put their membership on a sort of Leave of Absence (without pay) which can be done by anyone up to a full year. > As someone else here pointed out, they called their local National Guard > unit and asked the same question, and were told by the Gore voter on the end > of the line that if Bush had done anything wrong, he would be the first to > tell the caller. As I recall, if you don't show up for basic training, > you're out. Other than that, nothing. > > Tell you what I'm gonna do. I will call up MY local National Guard unit, and > ask THEM about it. Why don't YOU do the same thing? We'll all compare notes. You may do that, but I was on active duty at the time GWB was in the guard, and had a roommate at college just after I finished my active duty tour that was in a guard unit that flew the same aircraft as GWB, we discussed at length the guard and flying opportunities. groups.google.com