Posted on 07/16/2004 12:29:03 PM PDT by ArmyBratproud
Seems that Kerry's claims that Bush joined the Air Guard to dodge Vietnam are bogus. The proof of this is at the tail end of this AP Article. Last Paragraph. I have posted this since it seems the Liberal AP is trying to help John Kerry in his bogus claims. The writer of the story is Benac, a liberal AP writer/editor.-
...Udell says Bush asked about a program under which National Guard pilots were assigned to Vietnam, but Udell told him he wasn't eligible because he was certified on the F-102, which the military was phasing out.
Echoes of Vietnam in presidential campaign 35 years later
By Nancy Benac ASSOCIATED PRESS 11:01 p.m. February 8, 2004
WASHINGTON – They were two years apart, these two Yale boys, these sons of privilege, and so the moment of truth came first for John Kerry, later for George W. Bush. Each faced the same life-changing question as did so many others of their generation: what to do about Vietnam.
Kerry, part of the class of 1966, signed on with the Navy late in 1965, then had months to ponder his decision before actually entering officer candidate school after graduation. The war, his decision, his doubts, all hung over him as he spoke at commencement the following June.
"What was an excess of isolationism has become an excess of interventionism," he told fellow students. He had to know his life was set on a course for Vietnam.
For Bush, a member of the class of 1968, his last year in college seemed to signal the end of a time of innocence.
"The gravity of history was beginning to descend in a horrifying and disruptive way," he wrote in his 1999 biography. "By the time the ball dropped in Times Square to welcome 1968, the situation in Vietnam had escalated from a conflict to a raging war. Every night the newscast included a body count."
Bush debated his options over Christmas break back home in Houston, took a pilot aptitude test after he got back to school in January, and chose the National Guard. He would fly planes like his father did in World War II, but he had to know the odds of going to Vietnam were low.
Nearly 40 years later, the choices made by these two young men are reverberating through the presidential campaign as part of a larger debate over patriotism, leadership, duty, character. Each man is defined in part by the path he chose, and by the level of commitment he demonstrated along the way.
"We are all hostage to decisions we made in the past," said Douglas Brinkley, a history professor at the University of New Orleans who has written a book about Kerry's war years. "The bottom line is Kerry went and Bush didn't and it's an uncomfortable fact for a president" who has so eagerly wrapped himself in the flag as commander in chief.
Yet Brinkley said the two-year age difference between Kerry and Bush is an important backdrop to the courses they set.
In 1965, when Kerry decided to enlist, students "still saw the world in black and white," Brinkley said, and "not serving wasn't really an option" for the son of a foreign service officer. "His big decision was which branch of the military to join," said Brinkley. "Did he want to go to Vietnam? No. But how could he live with himself if he finagled his way out of his duty?"
By the time Bush joined the guard in 1968, Brinkley said, the horrors of Vietnam were playing out nightly on television and sentiment against the war was hardening. "By 1968, smart kids weren't going. It became OK not to go. ... So Bush looked for a way not to go," he said.
"If he had been the class of '66, it may have been different for George W. Bush."
Bush spoke about his decision to serve in the National Guard in an interview Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," saying, "I put in my time, proudly so. I would be careful to not denigrate the Guard. It's fine to go after me, which I expect the other side will do. I wouldn't denigrate service to the Guard, though."
Wesley Clark, a retired four-star general, is part of the campaign debate over military service, too, as he tries to keep his Democratic presidential campaign alive.
Clark, who viewed the military as a path of opportunity for a bright, middle-class kid from Arkansas, graduated first in his class at West Point in 1966, then headed off to Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship. He wrapped up his studies there in two years rather than three so he could get to Vietnam quicker, and came home with a Silver Star for heroism.
Clark still has scars on his shoulder, hip and leg, and his right index finger was shortened by a bullet during a firefight with the Viet Cong.
Lately, the campaign discussion has repeatedly turned to the candidates' military histories, with all sides faulting the others for exploiting the issue.
Neither Kerry nor Clark have made a point of personally raising Bush's military record on the campaign trail, but both say when asked that legitimate questions have been raised about the Bush record.
"It's almost like an inverted time warp," said Stanley Renshon, a political scientist and psychoanalyst at the City University of New York. "The point of it is that, 'I'm a war hero and you're not.' And the implication is that because you're a war hero, that gives you a special standing to talk about war and strategy. But it doesn't follow."
Hardly a speech goes by in which Kerry, a decorated war hero, does not invoke Vietnam and its legacy. Vietnam buddies travel with his campaign entourage and appear in his ads. At an emotional appearance just before Kerry's huge victory in the Iowa caucuses, he was reunited with a serviceman whose life he had saved as the skipper of a river patrol boat.
Kerry was awarded the Bronze Star for that rescue, less than a month after earning a Silver Star for beaching his boat and jumping ashore to chase down and kill a guerrilla who had a rocket launcher pointed at the Americans. After being awarded three Purple Hearts for minor injuries, Kerry's request for reassignment stateside six months early was granted.
His campaign mantra, "Bring it on," evokes the same never-back-down approach he had evinced in battle.
"The entire heart and soul of John Kerry's personna is Vietnam," said Brinkley. "What happened to him is so seared into his being that it's almost like rings in an old redwood tree."
Kerry's fierce criticism of the war upon his return to America did not sit well with some veterans, and still doesn't.
As an anti-war leader, he asserted in testimony to Congress that U.S. soldiers had "raped, cut off ears, cut off heads ... randomly shot at civilians ... poisoned food stocks" and committed other atrocities he later acknowledged he did not witness.
Bush, for his part, harked back to his fighter-pilot training last year when he climbed into a flight suit and flew in a Navy jet to land on an aircraft carrier off the California coast. He emerged from the plane with the swagger of a top-gun pilot, cradling his helmet under his arm, and shouted, "Yes I flew it!" to those on deck.
Now, he is facing a new round of questions about his guard service on issues that first came up during the 2000 campaign:
–Whether family connections helped him get into the Texas Air National Guard when there were waiting lists for what was seen as an easy billet. Bush says no one in his family pulled strings and that he got in because others didn't want to commit to the almost two years of active duty required for fighter pilot training.
–Whether he showed up for duty while assigned to guard units in Alabama, where he worked on a political campaign in 1972. Military records show no evidence he reported for duty. "There may be no evidence, but I did report," Bush told NBC, adding, "Otherwise, I wouldn't have been honorably discharged."
–Why he was allowed to end guard duty about six months early to attend Harvard Business School. Bush said on NBC he had "worked it out with the military. And I'm just telling you, I did my duty."
Maurice Udell, one of Bush's flight instructors at Ellington Air Force Base in Texas, remembers Bush as a standout student. "I'd rank him in the top 5 percent," says Udell, now 73 and retired. He rejects the notion that Bush got preferential treatment or that there was anything improper about his time in Alabama or in going to Harvard before his six-year guard commitment had ended.
"I was really a tough instructor but I was fair with him," Udell said, remembering Bush for his excellent memory and standout sense of humor. "I'd give him hell about something and he'd pop a joke and get you laughing and just break up the whole situation."
Udell says Bush asked about a program under which National Guard pilots were assigned to Vietnam, but Udell told him he wasn't eligible because he was certified on the F-102, which the military was phasing out.
Find this article at: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20040208-2301-vietnamechoes.html
Rope A Dope - the deeper they dig, the more egg on their face. Suckers!
Interesting how she buried it at the bottom of the article.
Looks like Bush tried to go to Vietnam.
Not that he would not be brave for being assigned elsewhere.
The fact that he would fly an f-102 makes him a braver man than most. Those things were not the most reliable birds.
"Udell says Bush asked about a program under which National Guard pilots were assigned to Vietnam, but Udell told him he wasn't eligible because he was certified on the F-102, which the military was phasing out.
I GET SO FRUSTRATED BECAUSE ALL OF THIS INFO IS COMING OUT (LIKE JOE WILSON'S BIG LIE), YET WE SEE IT ON A COUPLE OF CONSERVATIVE WEBSITES AND THAT'S IT. END OF STORY!!
WHEN IS THE BUSH/CHENEY CAMPAIGN GOING TO START EXPOSING THIS STUFF. THE DIM-O-RATS WOULD IF THE SHOE WAS ON THE OTHER FOOT. IT'S TIME FOR THE GOP TO GET TOUGH. NO, SCRATCH "TOUGH". IT'S TIME FOR THE GOP TO GET "BRUTAL".
Hey, did you all know that John Kerry was in Vietnam? I think he's mentioned it once or twice along the trail. </sarcasm>
Facts just get in the way of leftists. They'll say BUT .....
Many ways to spin a lie -- Only one way to tell the truth!
I have been waiting for the right moment to post this article. Now is a right moment.
I have feeling I will have to bring this article up again later.
This political season is gonna be a dog fight...
That's ok........cause this dog's got jaw pressure!
The facts are meant to be ignored by the america hating media. They have their agenda and the truth simply is something to be ignored.
Glad to see this story getting some light. I read about Mr Bush's Guard duty 6 months ago and it was mentioned that he had signed up for Vietnam but wasn't qualified as he flew a type of Jet that was not used in Nam.
What? This ignores history. Vietnam, at a very high level, was somewhat of a repeat of Korea. We prevailed in Korea. We sought to do the same in Vietnam but failed. A comparison of South Korea and South Vietnam today confirms that our intentions were justified but our implementation plan was lousy.
Then let me make one request...to all of us.
A) Start calling you local and national radio shows. Usually...when they keep bringing an issue up...and it makes several different markets....the Main stream media gimps have no choice but to report it because they don't want the egg on their face for being last to a story.
(that tip is one I got from a lady who used to work as an editor for a newspaper)
B) AND DO BOTH A AND B- got to georgewbush.com and get the main phone number( I think I pulled it off a "contacts" icon). Tell them you have this story that shows that GWB asked for a Vietnam pilot slot. They will usually take your name and phone number...and then someone may call you back. If enough of us do this....the campaign folks may be compelled to use it.
It was well-known to those subject to the draft in the 60's that if you knew you were going to be drafted and wanted to avoid the chance of being sent into combat in Vietnam, you should enlist in the Navy. That's why there was a waiting list for that service, as well as the Coast Guard, while the Army and Marines had to use draftees.
When the plane was in demand overseas, Bush was not yet qualified to fly it. By the time he passed his final combat flight test in June 1970, the Air Force was pulling the jets out of Southeast Asia.
Bush, the Texas governor and presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said in his autobiography that he and a friend, Fred Bailey, tried to join the Palace Alert program that rotated National Guard pilots into Vietnam. A colonel told them only a few more pilots would go and "Fred and I had not logged enough hours to participate," Bush wrote.
Retired Col. Maury Udell, who trained Bush to fly the F-102, has no doubt his pupil was willing to go to Vietnam. Udell agreed that Bush was too inexperienced for Palace Alert, but he said the young man did become a good fighter pilot. "George got really good in air-to-air combat," he said.
Udell, now a 270-pound judo expert who describes himself as a "war-type guy," said Bush had an extraordinary memory and ability to process information. From Udell's perspective, Bush's ability to overcome his aristocratic schooling at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., and Yale University and mix with the other guardsmen was more impressive. "It is OK to get a good education, but some of those people are a little off the wall," he said. "I just wanted to make sure that he was in it for real."
Udell said he spent six hours a day for six months training Bush. And that's not all. "We would go to the bar and play dead bug just like everybody else," he said. When someone yelled "dead bug" the pilots would hit the floor and stick their hands and feet up in the air. "The last guy to do that has to buy the next round," Udell said, laughing. "He was really good with folks," he said. But the young pilot did not take insults well: "You can't put him down too easily. He's really tough. He'll fight you."
Udell says Bush asked about a program under which National Guard pilots were assigned to Vietnam, but Udell told him he wasn't eligible because he was certified on the F-102, which the military was phasing out.
Thanks for (re) posting. I saw it before when it first appeared.
It's old news for some of us who knew that the reason he didn't go to Viet Nam was that the fighter was being phased out and his time in the guard was almost up (i.e. no time to requalify in another plane). The reason he got out early was partly this and partly that as the war was winding down in 1971/72, the defense department was looking to cut active duty rosters to save money. Why not let out early a jet jockey who was close the end of his tour and who could not requalify in another fighter before the end of his active service time?
Forgot to mention...
I was led to this info/article through the workings of
The Daveman.....from The Daveman Speaks Out....e-mails of news and info that conservatives need.
The Daveman always has a wise tag line...."because information is power".
Now if he would just get off his tail end and start a web site.
Calm yourself down.
This article on the National Guard is from February, number one.
As to the Wilson saga, there is a grand jury underway and the WH would be fools to make public comment on the issue. The truth IS getting out there.
Believe it.
This article IS from almost 6 months ago...
Why are you stirring up this story?
awsome post ravingnutter. cool name too.
I have his book. A Charge To Keep. I am guessing that is the auto biography menioned?
I would love to meet Udell. GW's Book makes Udell sound like a warrior god. The right type of man to train our troops.
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