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"Doesn't one have to be active military before the term AWOL can even be applied? Or are the libs just being loose with words, as usual."

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

Give the Freeper the prize. Bingo. DEAD ON.

You cannot be AWOL from National Guard -- unless you are active duty. When your unit is in the reserves, and your only obligation is monthly meetings AWOL is a non-sequitur.

Nor did Bush "desert." That is a criminal charge. If you miss one or even a bunch of Guard meetings you are not "deserting." It's like saying that someone who overdraws a bank account has committed bank robbery.

And, there is no evidence that Bush missed more meetings than he was obligated to go to anyway. In fact, there is plenty of evidence that he more than fulfilled his Guard obligations.

What these charges *really* boil down to is a cheap gotcha game based on the absence of records more attributible to bad record-keeping in a Guard unit than anything else. And -- oh yeah -- 30 years after the fact a General failed to remember a junior lieutenant who was in his unit for only a short time, when neither was required to attend meetings more than a few times a month.

All this demonstrates is (a) how little exposure Democrats have to Reserve or Guard Service (big surprise that, huh?) and (b) the Democrats don't really count on the votes of Guard or Reserve veterans for the 2004 election, or they would not be denigrating Guard and Reserve service the way they have had to in order to attempt to count coup on President Bush.