Bush and Military Service

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Registered: 04-16-2003
Bush and Military Service
134
Tue, 02-10-2004 - 12:53pm
By Richard Cohen

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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Avatar for independentgrrrl
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 02-11-2004 - 12:44pm
<>

Maybe you ought to go beyond the DNC's talking points. The libs are at their best when fomenting resentment against those who don't hold their ideologies sacred. (Hmmm...conservatism and liberalism are diametrically opposed therefore, according to the DNC playbook, conservatives are evil.) How do you equate *giving a pass* with information gathered based on facts?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 02-11-2004 - 1:56pm
It isn't necessarily a partisan thing for some of us to be opposed to the war in Iraq. I'd be furious at any party which behaved as recklessly as the one currently in power. So maybe, just maybe, this needs to be couched in terms other than Democrats/Republicans, conservatives/liberals, etc.

It is simpler to rail at anybody who doesn't share one's ideology so maybe that's why it happens so much. But I've said it before and I'll say it again. This is a life and death situation. Both Americans and Iraqis are being killed and maimed. Also our reputation as a just world power and our integrity are on the line now.

If we don't identify the mistakes that were made, do our best to rectify them and try to avoid repeating them again, then this kind of situation will happen again. I'm a mother and the last thing I want is seeing my children die for questionable reasons. I hated having my son in Iraq. I hate hearing of the continuing deaths of soldiers and Iraqis.

I wonder. Hussein has been captured, no significant threats of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons have been uncovered--but we're still there and it looks like we'll be there a good long while. Look at Israel and its ongoing struggle with suicide bombings. All the heavy handed tactics that Sharon adopted haven't succeeded in stopping attacks. How will we keep the same sort of thing from happening in Iraq? What's the mission now in Iraq and how will we know when we've accomplished it? Will the Iraqis accept a government that some may perceive as a puppet US regime? When can the troops come home? There are lots of tough questions that can't and shouldn't be answered by a simple party line response.

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

Avatar for moon627
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 02-11-2004 - 2:32pm
i dont like bush but i dont really care that he was a wuss and his daddy got him out of going to vietnam. i like what Dole said about it - if military service meant anything to the voters than he'd have been made president - haha :)
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-29-2004
Wed, 02-11-2004 - 3:47pm
Just a point... this little NYTimes gem is from the OPINION page?

Well, it MUST be factual info then.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 02-11-2004 - 3:53pm
You want to know my OPINION about the New York Times????????????????????

LOL

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Wed, 02-11-2004 - 7:17pm
Yeah, it's hilarious how riduculous it is that no one rememebers a stranger who visited the base 35 years ago on 6 days spread out over 4 or 5 months on an erratic schedule (he was fitting in time here and there whenever he happened to have time off instead of on a set schedule) which made it unlikely that he would even cross paths with the same people more than once or twice because everyone in the unit was only in for a day of service at a time just like him.

I'm sure his girlfriend from that time who recalls him not being able to see her on occasions because he was putting in his service time and the people working on the campaign with him who recall him mentioning serving at that time and the ones that say they got together with him on a couple of weekends after the campaign when he flew into Alabama for the sole purpose of completing his temporary committment to the Alabama Guard have faulty memories.

Renee

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 02-11-2004 - 7:54pm
I love the fact that when pressed further, the former Commanding Officer did not even think he was on the base at the time.....kind of funny.

Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 02-11-2004 - 8:00pm
Criticism of Kerry is irrelevant to the questions that have been raised about Pres. Bush's National Guard service.

C

Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 02-11-2004 - 8:09pm
It makes a difference when he, as Commander-in-Chief, sends BRAVE young men and women into combat in a war that IMO was unnecessary.

C

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 02-11-2004 - 11:07pm
And as you state, that is your opinion.

Apparently John Kerry, Dick Gephardt, Tom Daschel, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Shummer, etc thought it necessary to use military force, otherwise they would not have voted for it.....afterall, they had access to the exact intelligence that President Bush had.

On another note, former President Clinton still feels that Iraq had WMD's when the war began, based on all the intelligence he had seen prior to leaving office.

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