Replies

Bush enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard's 147th Fighter-Interceptor Group at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston and was selected for pilot training. In July of that year a board of officers said he should be commissioned as a second lieutenant; he left for six weeks of basic training and was commissioned that September 4. Then he took off for eight weeks to work on a Florida Senate campaign. Next he attended and graduated from flight school (November 25, 1968, to November 28, 1969). He trained full-time to be an F-102 pilot at Ellington, where from July 7, 1970, to April 16, 1972, he attended frequent drills and alerts. From this point on, his record is murky. Bush's records reveal no sign he showed up for duty during his fifth year as a guardsman, according to the Globe. On May 24, 1972, Bush had moved to Alabama to work on a Senate race and received permission to serve with a reserve unit there. Headquarters ordered that he serve with a more active unit, and on September 5, 1972, he got permission to perform his Guard duty at the 187th Tactical Recon Group in Montgomery. But there is no record of his turning up, and the unit commander says he never did. From November 1972 to April 30, 1973, Bush was in Houston but didn't go to his Guard duties. In May 1973, two lieutenant colonels in charge of Bush's Houston unit were unable to rate him for the prior 12 months, claiming he had not been at the unit during that time.

----------------------

Nobody with any sense of reality ever took his enlistment in the Texas Air National Guard seriously. The unit was flying obsolete aircraft and couldn't be called for serious duty. It was a flying country club for the well-connected.

RLK, I have to agree with Redleg Duke here. Military aviation is a dangerous business (especially supersonic fighters) and such a unit is no country club. Nobody at a country club has to bury a buddy because he was blown to bits on the golf course. Logged any F-102 time, any fighter time, any supersonic time?

Additionally, I doubt that Falcon drivers from a "country club" would have been dispatched to defend Air Force One on September 11th.

OK...how many planes, obsolete or otherwise, have you flown in service to our country?

As far as I have been able to learn, the jet he flew was particularly difficult and resulted in quite a few crashes. Not exactly an easy task.

Plus, elements of the Texas Air Guard were called up in Viet Nam.

A load of horse crap direct from the 1000 pager.... Bet you can't provide a bit of documentation for the assertion about being called for serious duty....... That is unless you don't consider Vietnam 'serious duty'...... do you?

Just so you don't get too deep into your load of crap.... the TANG 147th Fighter Wing, based in Houston, Texas flew in Vietnam and SE Asia and participate in Operation "Palace Alert"..... President Bush voluntered for the unit at the time they were serving in Vietnam....

You're entitled to your "elitist" point of view; no matter how ignorant it is.

However, that is not what the NYT said in their article. They contended Bush was excused from his reserve unit to assist with a campaign, but he rejoined his unit (in another location) and completed his reserve time. Bush was never AWOL and he was never a DESERTER.

Since the NYT is the "paper of record" .. are you going to call them a liar? They hate Bush and they would go out of their way to discredit him, if possible. For Jennings to even say it was a "reckless statement not supported by the facts", I think Jennings could be right, especially if he read the NYT.

You people need to give this up because the only person getting hurt by this is you .. it destroys your credibility when you cannot even admit there is credible evidence which DOES NOT SUPPORT YOUR CLAIM.