Bush and Military Service

iVillage Member
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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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 02-23-2004 - 6:30pm
Beautiful dreamer...please keep dreaming. The Shrub will be going back to Texas in 2005. The country will wake up to the fact that The Shrub is a liar! The Shrub's policies have been bad for this country and the American people!
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Mon, 02-23-2004 - 7:23pm
I know this don't have anything to do with the topic, but I got a question

My frist day of my last period was on Jan 21 making my due date Oct 27. Well the computer says the conception date was Feb 4 how off can that be?
Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Tue, 02-24-2004 - 4:52am
I agree with you that the president’s record during his presidency is more important. But, since he has taken to playing up his service record, it has become fair game for those who have questions about it. However, I do think it’s foolish for his campaign to extend this focus on the Vietnam era by attacking Kerry’s anti-war views from that time.

“And yet: even as the actual war fades in memory, Vietnam still looms as a festering culture war, a permanent fixture of the national collective unconscious, always on tap for fresh hostilities.” I totally agree with Rich on this and I see no benefit in reviving the culture wars of that time.

C

Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Tue, 02-24-2004 - 5:11am
I didn't realize it was a fake and I'm surprised it was shown on so many news programs without being authenticated.

C

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Tue, 02-24-2004 - 8:24am

>"I'm surprised it was shown on so many news programs without being authenticated."<


Amazing, isn't it?


>"As a 20-year-old photographer documenting the country's struggle over the Vietnam War, Ken Light snapped the picture of John Kerry at a peace rally in Mineola. It captured the future senator alone at a podium, squinting into the sun.

Light did not photograph Jane Fonda on that warm June Sunday in 1971. The actress, who is reviled by many Vietnam veterans for her vocal stance against the war, did not even attend."<


More.......



http://www.newsday.com/ny-kerry0215,0,1445946,print.story?coll=ny-top-headlines

cl-Libraone~

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 02-24-2004 - 10:26am
I think it is lose/lose for both sides.

The only thing that troubles me about Kerry is that he is touting his war record, but then makes no mention of the fiasco after his return (ie the Winter Soldier Investigation). I personally dont care that he was opposed to the war, as many people at the time were, but to have people pose as imposters to "strengthen" his case is wrong. If this is true, then he will never be elected.

Also, for someone who served for only 2 months, it is amazing that he was wounded three separate times. I would like to see about the 2 months of active service too.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 02-24-2004 - 10:27am
The one at the podium is a fake, but the one where Kerry is blurry about three rows behind Fonda is the real thing.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Tue, 02-24-2004 - 4:52pm
<>

And you know this how? I thought it looked faked when I saw it.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 02-24-2004 - 11:25pm
The photographer for both photos has admitted to the same....one real, one fake.

Kerry and Fonda both admit that the one with Kerry in the background is real too.

Besides, with my background in photography, I can let you know how you could spot the podium one being fake.....look at the shadows on Kerry's face from the sun...there are none on Fonda...also they are both in perfect focus when they have to be at least 4 feet apart...no depth of field.

Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 02-25-2004 - 3:17am
The sources I’ve read say that Kerry spent four months in combat after serving for a year on a destroyer. Where did you get the information on Kerry’s length of service? I’ve asked Wrhen for a credible source on the same information you stated, but she never replied.

One of my sources: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4271520/

C

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