I made a long post about it, but I'm not sure if it was here, on the AMD thread, on one of the Boxing Ring threads (Sharks in the Septic Tank formally The Boxing Ring, The Boxing Ring Revived, The Slightly Moderated Boxing Ring), or on the Bush thread.
From National Guard Magazine -
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.
Lisa Daniel is a Burke, Va.-freelancer.
ngaus.org
From the New York Times -
Two Democratic senators today called on Gov. George W. Bush to release his full military record to resolve doubts raised by a newspaper about whether he reported for required drills when he was in the Air National Guard in 1972 and 1973. But a review of records by The New York Times indicated that some of those concerns may be unfounded. The Times examined the record in response to a previous Boston Globe story.
Documents reviewed by The Times showed that Mr. Bush served in at least 9 of the 17 months in question... On Sept. 5, 1972, Mr. Bush asked his Texas Air National Guard superiors for assignment to the 187th Tactical Recon Group in Montgomery "for the months of September, October and November." Capt. Kenneth K. Lott, chief of the personnel branch of the 187th Tactical Recon Group, told the Texas commanders that training in September had already occurred but that more training was scheduled for Oct. 7 and 8 and Nov. 4 and 5. But Mr. Bartlett said Mr. Bush did not serve on those dates because he was involved in the Senate campaign, but he made up those dates later.
Colonel Turnipseed, who retired as a general, said in an interview that regulations allowed Guard members to miss duty as long as it was made up within the same quarter. Mr. Bartlett pointed to a document in Mr. Bush's military records that showed credit for four days of duty ending Nov. 29 and for eight days ending Dec. 14, 1972, and, after he moved back to Houston, on dates in January, April and May. The May dates correlated with orders sent to Mr. Bush at his Houston apartment on April 23, 1973, in which Sgt. Billy B. Lamar told Mr. Bush to report for active duty on May 1-3 and May 8-10. Another document showed that Mr. Bush served at various times from May 29, 1973, through July 30, 1973, a period of time questioned by The Globe.
(Abstract can be found at nytimes.com
"Even the Boston Globe's story admits Bush served more than the minimum time, and was a fine pilot:
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.
Incidentally, Bush flew with the 111th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, which was attached to the 147th Fighter Wing, based in Houston, Texas. While Bush's unit never got called to Vietnam, the 147th was. From 1968 through 1970, pilots from the 147th participated in operation "Palace Alert" and served in Southeast Asia during the height of the Vietnam War. The 147th came off runway alert on Jan. 1, 1970 to start a new mission of training all F-102 pilots in the United States for the Air National Guard.
Bush enlisted as an Airman Basic in the 147th Fighter-Interceptor Group at Ellington Air Force Base, Houston, on May 28, 1968 - a a time when the 147th was actively participating in combat in Vietnam. However, one can not train overnight to be a pilot. Bush completed basic flight training and then, from December 1969 through June 27, 1970, he was training full-time at Ellington to be an F-102 pilot.
Bush volunteered to serve in a unit at the very moment it was seeing combat in Vietnam, and only a restructuring of the unit's mission before he completed his flight training made it unlikely he would fly in combat. And he was never AWOL - he completed his required service and even served beyond the minimum."
simmins.org
"Bush AWOL? The "Evidence" Proves Nothing
I've looked at the issue of President Bush allegedly being "AWOL" from his Texas Air National Guard duties in 1972 and applied a well-honed journalist's skepticism to the evidence pro and con. Is there hard proof Bush didn't show up when he was supposed to? The short answer is, no. The evidence, such as it is, is a lack of paperwork on certain matters. The anti-Bushies spin the lack of paperwork as proof positive that Bush was "AWOL." But a more benign explanation is easy to see: the paper clerks screwed up the paperwork. That's not unheard of in the military, is it?
In the end, the evidence against Bush is circumstantial, while the evidence in his favor is as follows:
1. He successfully completed flight training - indicating he was there sufficient amount of time during that phase.
2. He is remembered as a good pilot by those who flew with him.
3. He received an honorable discharge, indicating he fulfilled his service requirement.
4. The Guard had a high opinion of him in late 2000/early 2001, before the war earned him high respect among the military (as evidenced by an article in National Guard magazine in January 2001, referenced and linked to in my previous post on this matter.)
Those all indicate the "Bush was AWOL" story has little to no credibility with those in the best position to know.
More problematic is the recollection of one colonel who says he doesn't remember Bush ever being on the base in Alabama. But that's one man, looking back 31 years, and there's little reason he should have singled out Bush back then for special notice in his memory file. Bush back then was just a kid whose dad was sort of famous in Texas - not famous in Alabama. Bush's father had not yet been president, vice president or CIA director. In fact, in 1970, the senior Bush, a two-term congressman from Texas, lost a Senate race. He wasn't even that big in Texas!
A year later, the senior Bush was appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Can you name our current UN ambassador? Perhaps you can, but you're part of a group of people interested in national politics or you wouldn't be following this story across the blogosphere. I doubt the typical National Guard colonel knows the name of the ambassador to the UN.
Those who claim the younger Bush got a cushy Guard appointment safely removed from the danger of Vietnam combat on account of his famous dad are just looking at the past through the filter of post-event history. George W. Bush applied to the Guard when his daddy was a one-term, back-bench, minority-party congressman - not years later when the senior Bush had been chairman of the Republican National Committee, CIA director, vice president and so on.
Would a colonel in Alabama know who George W. Bush's father was way back in 1972? It seems unlikely. So his inability to recall, 31 years later, that Bush was on base, is not all that surprising. I doubt that colonel today could name most of the people who were on that base in 1972. The anti-Bushies spin his lack of memory as proof Bush wasn't on the base, when all it merely proves is the colonel can't remember Bush being on the base.
Much of the "evidence" the anti-Bushies cite is like that. It doesn't prove what they claim, but it can be spun that way, so they spin. It still comes down to this: George W. Bush was a Texas Air National Guard pilot who flew sophisticated aircraft for a unit that very well could have gone to Vietnam (and indeed parts of it were deployed to Vietnam when Bush enlisted) and he was honorably discharged having fulfilled his service requirements."
hobbsonline.blogspot.com |
