How much more of this crap are we going to have to deal with between now and November 2? My Viking Kitty is tired.
Posted on 09/10/2004 10:30:27 PM PDT by grassboots.org
Neither Random nor Mandatory Drug Testing Were Used in the military until 1981. Therefore President Bush was not likely avoiding tests that were not yet given.
www.grassboots.org
Desperation is fun to watch.
Poor DNC.
What will they try now...
There is a lot of things that the press is claiming as mandatory that isnt so. Like the physical itself, if Bush didnt want to take his physical it was his option to skip it and lose his flight status, with no negatives on his records.
How much more of this crap are we going to have to deal with between now and November 2? My Viking Kitty is tired.
What will they try now...
Have they tried VD yet? Memo to the file...
I don't think they had drug tests as we know them today back then. If someone was suspected of alcohol or drug abuse there was a different procedure for it. This information was provided by the AF man intervied on Brit Hume today.
I have seen indications it became part of flight physicals in 1971 for all active duty and extended active duty personnel.I am not sure Bush was on extended active duty.
Whats that got to do with anything? Are you a troll? I noticed that you enrolled on sept 1,2004 have you been waiting all this time just to say cocaine is a hell of a drug?
Flight medicals were probably the same for military pilots as they are for FAA. They consist of a blood pressure test, a turn-your-head-and-cough exam and a question or two about whether you have ever had a gran-mal seizure.
They are looking for conditions that might cause you to lose consciousness while flying. That's about it.
They didn't do drug screening.
I know this can't be true because if he had done this, he'd have been running as Clinton's VP initially rather than as a Republican...
CB^)
Drug screen?
So what? Did Kerry go to North Vietnam (an enemy) as a reservist during the Vietnam War? Isn't that treason?
Bush would have passed the physical, drug testing and all, except that wasn't one of the screenings done then---but if it had been he would have been fine.
What was your point?
(as if we couldn't guess)
I served in the United States Marine Corps from 1979 until 1985 and was given my first random drug test in.... 1985. (I passed, fyi.)
www.classicalvalues.com/archives/001242.html
It is true that drug testing wasn't commonly done until the 80's. I don't know if even the tests had been developed by the 71/72 timeframe or not.
I said on another thread, and I think it speaks right to the point, that drug testing when it was finally implemented was a separate process from the ordinary physicals. A flight medical certification was mainly done to make sure the the pilot didn't have a heart condition or a respiratory condition that made him/her a high risk for an in-flight medical problem. Drugs weren't really even on the horizon in the early seventies as something to worry about for pilots.
Hair... got comment?
John Loftus has been spreading this rumor for months, on the John Batchelor show, that Bush wouldn't take the physical in order to avoid the drug test. He offers no substantiation. I'm glad to see that this rumor is now being refuted.
Amazing how all of the pictures from back then make George Bush to be an incredible specimen of health and an outstanding young man.
The Democrats are really loosing it.
By the way, if I recall correctly, random drug testing was a procedure unto itself. That is, I had physical exams in the USMC and those physical exams were just that - - physical exams. And those physical exams DID NOT include drug testing.
no, there were drug tests by the military for heroin in the 1960s, I believe.
Once upon a time, I had a boyfriend who was a fanatic about this kind of stuff.
You mean the ANG guy.
Plus, he said said that pilots had to take a phyiscal within a time-frame, based on end of the pilot's birth month. Bush was still
in that period when the alleged memo ordering him to take the phsyical was dated.
So, an order within the allowed time-frame doesn't make sense.
The vicious mean spirited goof balls on Air America think that is exactly what happened. Don't confuse them with the facts! The truth is not something they care to know.
They've got us answering allegations raised on 'memos' someone pulled out of their ______ . If the documents are fake, so are the issues in them!
Your right. The time frame was any time during the 12 week period prior to his birth month until the last day of his birth month. There was no way that a physical would be ordered until that time period had been missed.
Are you speaking from personal experience of cocaine?
This physical business is another DNC nonsense flap, trying to confuse the ignorant. One of these documents is supposed to be an order from the CO (commanding officer) to Bush to report for his physical? At the time, Bush was attached to a unit in Alabama. His CO would not have ordered him to report, in any case. Every pilot took a physical once a year in his birth month in order to keep flying. If anyone NOTIFIED him, it would probably be the unit personnel clerk or unit secretary/clerk. If a pilot missed a physical, he could not fly until he took it. Bush was evidently not flying in AL at that time, missed it, but took it later when he went back to flying at drills.
Go to the Hill and read Byron York's piece on Bush's TÅNG years.
It explains a couple of facts the far left is banking on very few people knowing. Bush went on active duty for training for nearly two years--being a Air Nat'l Guard officer was his every day job.
He served almost two years of active duty going through, officer, pilot training, advanced checkout, etc. Guard officers were required to get at least 50 points every year, and Bush exceeded them for the first three years, and fulfilled them for the last two.
This Bush was AWOL crap is just that--it smells of tactics from Hitler's propaganda playbook and the Communist playbook. What a soundbite--"Bush was AWOL"---"Bush was a deserter"--people will remember those expressions. Just keep repeating it in the face of proof otherwise, and some stupid ignorant people will believe it without looking into it. Some people know better, but keep saying it because they are vile, dishonest, and do not care what they do as long as they win. People with brains and integrity know better.
Where do you stand?
vaudine
Drug tests really didn't start until AFTER the Vietnam war ended...and even then, it wasn't till 1975 that it became a normal thing.
The reasons are quiet simple. Out of every 100 that pulled a tour in Southeast Asia, at least 80 percent had tried some kinda drug, and at least 50 percent were weekly users. When I joined in 75...and you have to remember my first assignment was in Germany....at least 40 percent of the folks who lived in the barracks were weekly users of drugs. For the entire two years I was in Germany...I knew of only one occassion that we did a unit drug test. Strangely enough, only 3 guys failed (they were the daily users interestinly enough). The weekly users passed.
By 1979, the whole drug-testing situation had changed, and everyone was being tagged. I had 3 individual tests in 12 months. And later when I went to Panama, the AF tested me 12 times in 36 months. Thats when drug abuse dropped. By 1982, there simply weren't alot of users in the Air Force.
There was NO Mandatory drug testing before 1980...SO HE DIDN'T NEED TO AVOID ANYTHING...SHEESH
1981, EXCUSE ME.
"Is that all you do all day, lay around the house waiting to make a stupid post?!"
dude...it's a reference to the Dave Chappelle show where they "interview" Rick James. To illustrate how crazy Rick is, they would cut away to a clip of him saying "cocaine is a helluva drug" at opportune times.
Given all the bs about the Prez being a coke-fiend, I thought it was kind of a funny reference, since it's all complete nonsense.
But then, I have kind of a warped sense of humour...
The point I was trying to make earlier, on another thread, was that this whole bidness of trying to skip a physical (or perhaps properly said a "flight medical") in order to avoid some imagined drug test... is all a red herring.
Drug testing, when it was implemented (apparently in the 80's) was a separate procedure and had it's own apparatus. Drug testing simply wasn't part of an ordinary physical... especially in the early 70's... but even after drug testing was implemented it was a separate procedure done by the command and the testing was contracted out to various labs. Even then... it would have been a waste of time to bother with any drug testing during the physical.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so.
You're probably right about that.
This has been Air Force policy for 40 years and as of two years ago it was still the policy.
So any physical Bush had wouldn't include any drug test and to set the record Bush wasn't required to take the flight physical until 5 months after this memo was dated.
The date for Bush to take the physical was 31 July and he had another 90 days after that before he would be removed from flying status.
Seems like more than enough time to come clean before any drug tests even if there were any!
You're wrong. I enlisted 1973. Random drug testing started in the AF during mid 70s. We called it golden flow. They tested for barbs and speed. Pot heads, and there were alot, had nothing to worry about. Casual cocaine users (weekenders) could usually pass if the test wasn't on Monday.
It's really amazing what Clinton was known to do, and what Bush is being taken to task for, by the very same people who spun for Clinton when the actual truth surfaced.
My experience in the Army ( '71 - '80 ) was essentially the same..
1975 was when the drug testing started, and I would also agree as to the (relatively) high percentage of drug use by those returning from vietnam.. at least in the barracks..
Drug testing had nothing to do with physicals, however, it was a seperate issue..
I would note that such testing was generally limited to younger, enlisted personnel, and not to older NCO's or Officers..
Ah... that's been the standard DNC line... that he "avoided" his last physical in the ANG in order to not be snagged by a drug test.
Of course it is lost on them that he was already in a non-flight status by that point, given the short-timer status he was in and that the F-102 didn't have much future, and he was in Alabama by then where they didn't appear to have any 102s anyway... and he had a desk job there to finish his last few months of duty.. so letting the medical lapse when you're not in a flying billet is simply not a big deal...
sheesh. lots of sound and fury over nothing.
I'm afraid I can't agree with your statement that President Bush could just decide to skip his flight physical, be taken off flight status, and have no negatives on his records. I was for 20 years an AF Air Traffic Controller. Controllers have the same medical requirements as pilots, we had to take an annual flight physical. There was no way I could just up and skip my flight physical because I wanted to. A flight physical was mandatory to be a controller or a pilot.
As far as drug testing, at that time the AF did not do routine screening for drugs. I'm not even sure there were urine tests that would detect drugs. Routine, random drug screening did not start until the early '80s'. In the early '70's the only way the AF would have tested for drugs is if the commander suspected someone in his unit of using drugs and sent a written order, acknowledged by the individual, to report to the medical facility for a drug test.
What do you bet we find out this whole story is the work of some high school kid that managed to outsmart CBS?
Another nail in the coffin! FReepers are amazing...BTTT
Sounds right. I did drug testing of airmen from Davis Monthan AFB in 1976-77 time frame when I was in grad school. You're right about cocaine it is metabolized rapidly and even the benzyl ecgonine metabolite was undetectable in a few days with tests available then.
I didn't do the testing but was in charge of taking and processing urines samples for shipment to the testing facility at one of my Commands while I was active duty Navy in the late 90's.
The urine screening test that was used back then would only show a positive for cocaine usage if the urine sample was drawn within 72 hours of drug usage. Additionally drug testing in the Navy wasn't mandatory until the early 80's and I believe it was 81.
Think Clinton might have signed up had he known?
Anyone with eyes can readily associate the world "cocaine" with that personage.
Thanks for your service!
Gotta feel sorry for those poor pathetic dummies
There were no drug tests involved in a physical in 1971 or 1973.
Great point, lewis. /sarc
Say, you're new here!
Have you met Jim?
No?
...well, you have now. :o)
Flight physicals are some of the most demanding physicals along with SCUBA physicals. The flight physical is usually dreaded by pilots because every physical places your livlihood in jeopardy. They typically last a full day and frequently last over a period of a week.
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