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To: Oeconomicus who wrote (149756)11/7/2002 9:59:53 PM
From: Alomex  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 164684
 
Now, how is what you said even remotely correct?

My point is that he did not serve during the Vietnam War. You consider taking two months vacations and skipping his last year of service as "serving during the war", I don't.

As I noted before, we seem to have differing standards. You call two-month holidays "service in war", I call it draft dodging.

I'm also waiting for you to show where he "lies about his service record.

This is quite a surprise as you yourself gave the evidence in the link you provided. I'll save you the trouble and quote the relevant parts:

When asked about his service, Bush has lied, changed his story repeatedly, and weaseled in a manner eerily reminiscent of Bill Clinton. First of all, he has flat-out lied. In his official autobiography, ''A Charge to Keep,'' Bush said he flew with his unit for ''several years'' after finishing flight training in June 1970. His campaign biography states that he flew with the unit until he won release from the service in September 1973, nine months early, for graduate school. Both statements are lies. Bush only flew with the 111th for one year and 10 months, until April 1972 when he was suspended for failing to take his medical exam (and drug test), and never flew again.

Then there is his Clintonesque weaseling and word choice. Bush and his campaign claimed that no Bush family or friends pulled strings. Under pressure, this changed to "All I know is anybody named George Bush did not ask him [Ben Barnes] for help." By that he meant, himself or his dad. Of course, it later came out in court that a close Bush friend, Simon Adger, had asked Barnes to get Bush Jr. into the Guard, and that Barnes did so, via General Rose.

Now's it's not even clear that a George Bush didn't ask for help. When pressed, the former president's spokeswoman (Jean Becker) said he is "almost positive" that he and Mr. Adger never discussed the Guard matter. "He [Bush Sr.] he is fairly certain - I mean he doesn't remember everything that happened in the 1960s..." In any case, Bush Sr. and Adger were very close. Ms. Becker acknowledged that "President Bush knew Sid Adger well. He loved him." Adger may have needed only a hint.

Furthermore, George Bush Jr. admits that he knew Adger socially at the time, and further admits that he lobbied Col. "Buck" Staudt, the commander of the VIP unit Bush joined. Staudt claims that he, not General Rose (who he later replaced), was the one who made the decision on admissions anyway. Bush Jr. admits that he met Staudt in late 1967, during Christmas vacation of his senior year, called him later, and -- in Bush's words -- "found out what it took to apply."

When asked how Bush came to call Staudt, his spokeswoman Karen Hughes said he "heard from friends while he was home over the Christmas break that ... Colonel Staudt was the person to contact." She says that Bush doesn't recall who those "friends" were. But we know that Sid Adger was also a friend of Staudt's, served with him on the Houston Chamber of Commerce's Aviation Committee, and in 1967 held a luncheon honoring Gen. Staudt and his unit for winning an Air Force commendation. In fact, both of Adger's sons also joined General Staudt's unit, in 1966 and 1968 respectively.

Bush and his staff also claim that he vaulted ahead of the Air Guard waiting list because he was willing to fly an airplane, and there were openings. There is nothing to support this claim, however. For one thing, the F-102 was being phased out at the time and F-102 pilots were being released from service early, as indeed Bush himself was. And Tom Hail, a historian for the Texas Air National Guard, says flatly that there was no pilot shortage in the Guard squadron at that time. Bush's unit had 27 pilots at the time he applied; while they were authorized for 29 pilots, there were two more already in training and one awaiting a transfer.

Bush also weasels on whether he was avoiding combat or not. He has stated on several occasions that he did not want to be an infantryman, and acknowledges that he came to oppose the war itself. He claims that he joined the guard to fly planes, and would have been happy to go to Vietnam, but ignores the obvious choice of the Air Force or the Navy -- which his dad, a genuine war hero, joined. Furthermore, when he signed up for the Guard, he checked a box saying "Do not volunteer for overseas service." Later, he made a perfunctory application to transfer to a program called "Palace Alert", which dispatched F-102 pilots to Europe or the Far East -- and just occasionally Vietnam -- for 3 or 6 month assignments. But Bush was not nearly qualified, as he must have known, and was immediately turned down, and the F-102 not used overseas after June, 1970 in any case.

And, as noted above, his story also changed on why he refused to take a medical exam -- including a drug test - in 1972. (The refusal ended Bush's flying career.) His staff first claimed that he didn't take the physical because he was in Alabama and his personal physician was in Houston. But flight physicals can be administered only by certified Air Force flight surgeons, and there were surgeons assigned at the time to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, where Bush was living. His staff now admits that that explanation was "wrong", without saying where it came from or what the real reason was. Draft & National Guard Sources


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