Bush and Military Service
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| Tue, 02-10-2004 - 12:53pm |
Tuesday, February 10, 2004; Page A23
During the Vietnam War, I was what filmmaker Michael Moore would call a "deserter." Along with President Bush and countless other young men, I joined the National Guard, did my six months of active duty (basic training, etc.) and then returned to my home unit, where I eventually dropped from sight. In the end, just like President Bush, I got an honorable discharge. But unlike President Bush, I have just told the truth about my service. He hasn't.
At least I don't think so. Nothing about Bush during that period -- not his drinking, not his partying -- suggests that he was a consistently conscientious member of the Texas or Alabama Air National Guard. As it happens, there are no records to show that Bush reported for duty during the summer and fall of 1972. Nonetheless, Bush insists he was where he was supposed to be -- "Otherwise I wouldn't have been honorably discharged," Bush told Tim Russert. Please, sir, don't make me laugh.
It is sort of amazing that every four or eight years, Vietnam -- that long-ago war -- rears up from seemingly nowhere and comes to figure in the national political debate. In 1988 Dan Quayle had to answer for his National Guard service. In 1992 Bill Clinton had to grapple with the question of how he avoided the Vietnam-era draft. Now George Bush, who faced this question the last time out, has to face it again. The reason is that this time he is likely to compete against a genuine war hero. John Kerry did not duck the war.
But George Bush did. He did so by joining the National Guard. Bush now wants to drape the Vietnam-era Guard with the bloodied flag of today's Iraq-serving Guard -- "I wouldn't denigrate service to the Guard," Bush warned during his interview with Russert -- but the fact remained that back then the Guard was where you went if you did not want to fight. That was the case with me. I opposed the war in Vietnam and had no desire to fight it. Bush, on the other hand, says he supported the war -- as long, it seems, as someone else fought it.
It hardly matters what Bush did or did not do back in 1972. He is not the man now he was then -- that by his own admission. In the same way, it did not matter that Clinton ducked the draft, because, really, just about everyone I knew at the time was doing something similar. All that really matters is how one accounts for what one did. Do you tell the truth (which Clinton did not)? Or do you do what I think Bush has been doing, which is making his National Guard service into something it was not? In his case, it was a rich kid's way around the draft.
In my case, it was something similar -- although (darn!) I was not rich. I was, though, lucky enough to get into a National Guard unit in the nick of time, about a day before I was drafted. I did my basic and advanced training (combat engineer) and returned to my unit. I was supposed to attend weekly drills and summer camp, but I found them inconvenient. I "moved" to California and then "moved" back to New York, establishing a confusing paper trail that led, really, nowhere. For two years or so, I played a perfectly legal form of hooky. To show you what a mess the Guard was at the time, I even got paid for all the meetings I missed.
In the end, I wound up in the Army Reserve. I was assigned to units for which I had no training -- tank repairman, for instance. In some units, we sat around with nothing to do and in one we took turns delivering antiwar lectures. The National Guard and the Reserves were something of a joke. Everyone knew it. Books have been written about it. Maybe things changed dramatically by 1972, two years after I got my discharge, but I kind of doubt it.
I have no shame about my service, but I know it for what it was -- hardly the Charge of the Light Brigade. When Bush attempts to drape the flag of today's Guard over the one he was in so long ago, when he warns his critics to remember that "there are a lot of really fine people who have served in the National Guard and who are serving in the National Guard today in Iraq," then he is doing now what he was doing then: hiding behind the ones who were really doing the fighting. It's about time he grew up.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27178-2004Feb9.html

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Kerry enlisted to go to Vietnam 2 years prior to Bush's enlistment to the guard. Vietnam was already proving to be a disaster by the time Bush made his decision. He would have gone to Vietnam but his division wasn't called.
He didn't run off to Europe (see Clinton), but made a smart decision.
~W IN04~
Now that all of his military records are going to be made public, certain people may end up with a lot of egg on their face, or the President may be wearing the special facial....we will have to wait and see.
If his record exhonorates him, Kerry is in deep doo doo.
Renee
I know Bush is taking the high road, but I am SICK of all the absurd accusations and assaults by the Left. I wish the Republicans would get a backbone and call these people what they really are. Yeah, yeah I know that would be playing into their hands and they'd love it.
You never hear a Republican screaming and waving his/her arms around. Oh. That's a GOOD thing!
That IS a good thing. Witness Howard Dean after his primal scream. Howard who??? You know the guy who just disappeared off the DNC radar.
Both of them admitted that the Guard of the 70's is not the Guard of the conflict in Iraq. 10% of the Guard wound up in Vietnam back then. 40% are in Iraq now. Both also agreed that Bush should have reported for his flight physical--which he did not (maybe he would have "pissed hot" in the urinalysis for drug use!). For a president who likes to act like one of the guys, he had quite an advantge--Dubya was leapfrogged over 500 other applicants to get into the Texas Air Guard. Some leader!
Gettingahandle
Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.
The military records on GW Bush are now opened, and all of the questions are being answered, but in the news briefing this afternoon, several of the reporters were "upset" at the information available, because it apparently held up exactly what President Bush has asserted.
My take is that some in the media were miffed because there wasnt anything juicy to use against the President to make him look bad...
All I can say is awwwwwwwwwww.
One of my themes around here has been ways Rebuplicans & Democrats express their opinions differently, ie. the anti-war protests, and you've hit upon another perfect example.
All this rage isn't really anything new. There's a vintage tape of Hillary hollaring like a wounded banshee floating around somewhere.
Renee
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