Here's mine, back in the day
Posted on 08/24/2004 3:06:29 PM PDT by A Navy Vet
Letters to the Editor
'Bush and I were lieutenants'
George Bush and I were lieutenants and pilots in the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron (FIS), Texas Air National Guard (ANG) from 1970 to 1971. We had the same flight and squadron commanders (Maj. William Harris and Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, both now deceased). While we were not part of the same social circle outside the base, we were in the same fraternity of fighter pilots, and proudly wore the same squadron patch.
It is quite frustrating to hear the daily cacophony from the left and Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, et al., about Lt. Bush escaping his military responsibilities by hiding in the Texas ANG. In the Air Guard during the Vietnam War, you were always subject to call-up, as many Air National Guardsmen are finding out today. If the 111th FIS and Lt. Bush did not go to Vietnam, blame President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, not lowly Lt. Bush. They deliberately avoided use of the Guard and Reserves for domestic political calculations, knowing that a draftee only stirred up the concerns of one family, while a call-up got a whole community's attention.
The mission of the 147th Fighter Group and its subordinate 111th FIS, Texas ANG, and the airplane it possessed, the F-102, was air defense. It was focused on defending the continental United States from Soviet nuclear bombers. The F-102 could not drop bombs and would have been useless in Vietnam. A pilot program using ANG volunteer pilots in F-102s (called Palace Alert) was scrapped quickly after the airplane proved to be unsuitable to the war effort. Ironically, Lt. Bush did inquire about this program but was advised by an ANG supervisor (Maj. Maurice Udell, retired) that he did not have the desired experience (500 hours) at the time and that the program was winding down and not accepting more volunteers.
If you check the 111th FIS records of 1970-72 and any other ANG squadron, you will find other pilots excused for career obligations and conflicts. The Bush excusal in 1972 was further facilitated by a change in the unit's mission, from an operational fighter squadron to a training squadron with a new airplane, the F-101, which required that more pilots be available for full-time instructor duty rather than part-time traditional reservists with outside employment.
The winding down of the Vietnam War in 1971 provided a flood of exiting active-duty pilots for these instructor jobs, making part-timers like Lt. Bush and me somewhat superfluous. There was a huge glut of pilots in the Air Force in 1972, and with no cockpits available to put them in, many were shoved into nonflying desk jobs. Any pilot could have left the Air Force or the Air Guard with ease after 1972 before his commitment was up because there just wasn't room for all of them anymore.
Sadly, few of today's partisan pundits know anything about the environment of service in the Reserves in the 1970s. The image of a reservist at that time is of one who joined, went off for six months' basic training, then came back and drilled weekly or monthly at home, with two weeks of "summer camp." With the knowledge that Mr. Johnson and Mr. McNamara were not going to call out the Reserves, it did become a place of refuge for many wanting to avoid Vietnam.
There was one big exception to this abusive use of the Guard to avoid the draft, and that was for those who wanted to fly, as pilots or crew members. Because of the training required, signing up for this duty meant up to 2½ years of active duty for training alone, plus a high probability of mobilization. A fighter-pilot candidate selected by the Guard (such as Lt. Bush and me) would be spending the next two years on active duty going through basic training (six weeks), flight training (one year), survival training (two weeks) and combat crew training for his aircraft (six to nine months), followed by local checkout (up to three more months) before he was even deemed combat-ready. Because the draft was just two years, you sure weren't getting out of duty being an Air Guard pilot. If the unit to which you were going back was an F-100, you were mobilized for Vietnam. Avoiding service? Yeah, tell that to those guys.
The Bush critics do not comprehend the dangers of fighter aviation at any time or place, in Vietnam or at home, when they say other such pilots were risking their lives or even dying while Lt. Bush was in Texas. Our Texas ANG unit lost several planes right there in Houston during Lt. Bush's tenure, with fatalities. Just strapping on one of those obsolescing F-102s was risking one's life.
Critics such as Mr. Kerry (who served in Vietnam, you know), Terry McAuliffe and Michael Moore (neither of whom served anywhere) say Lt. Bush abandoned his assignment as a jet fighter pilot without explanation or authorization and was AWOL from the Alabama Air Guard.
Well, as for abandoning his assignment, this is untrue. Lt. Bush was excused for a period to take employment in Florida for a congressman and later in Alabama for a Senate campaign.
Excusals for employment were common then and are now in the Air Guard, as pilots frequently are in career transitions, and most commanders (as I later was) are flexible in letting their charges take care of career affairs until they return or transfer to another unit near their new employment. Sometimes they will transfer temporarily to another unit to keep them on the active list until they can return home. The receiving unit often has little use for a transitory member, especially in a high-skills category like a pilot, because those slots usually are filled and, if not filled, would require extensive conversion training of up to six months, an unlikely option for a temporary hire.
As a commander, I would put such "visitors" in some minor administrative post until they went back home. There even were a few instances when I was unaware that they were on my roster because the paperwork often lagged. Today, I can't even recall their names. If a Lt. Bush came into my unit to "pull drills" for a couple of months, I wouldn't be too involved with him because I would have a lot more important things on my table keeping the unit combat ready.
Another frequent charge is that, as a member of the Texas ANG, Lt. Bush twice ignored or disobeyed lawful orders, first by refusing to report for a required physical in the year when drug testing first became part of the exam, and second by failing to report for duty at the disciplinary unit in Colorado to which he had been ordered. Well, here are the facts:
First, there is no instance of Lt. Bush disobeying lawful orders in reporting for a physical, as none would be given. Pilots are scheduled for their annual flight physicals in their birth month during that month's weekend drill assembly — the only time the clinic is open. In the Reserves, it is not uncommon to miss this deadline by a month or so for a variety of reasons: The clinic is closed that month for special training; the individual is out of town on civilian business; etc.
If so, the pilot is grounded temporarily until he completes the physical. Also, the formal drug testing program was not instituted by the Air Force until the 1980s and is done randomly by lot, not as a special part of a flight physical, when one easily could abstain from drug use because of its date certain. Blood work is done, but to ensure a healthy pilot, not confront a drug user.
Second, there was no such thing as a "disciplinary unit in Colorado" to which Lt. Bush had been ordered. The Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver is a repository of the paperwork for those no longer assigned to a specific unit, such as retirees and transferees. Mine is there now, so I guess I'm "being disciplined." These "disciplinary units" just don't exist. Any discipline, if required, is handled within the local squadron, group or wing, administratively or judicially. Had there been such an infraction or court-martial action, there would be a record and a reflection in Lt. Bush's performance review and personnel folder. None exists, as was confirmed in The Washington Post in 2000.
Finally, the Kerrys, Moores and McAuliffes are casting a terrible slander on those who served in the Guard, then and now. My Guard career parallels Lt. Bush's, except that I stayed on for 33 years. As a guardsman, I even got to serve in two campaigns. In the Cold War, the air defense of the United States was borne primarily by the Air National Guard, by such people as Lt. Bush and me and a lot of others. Six of those with whom I served in those years never made their 30th birthdays because they died in crashes flying air-defense missions.
While most of America was sleeping and Mr. Kerry was playing antiwar games with Hanoi Jane Fonda, we were answering 3 a.m. scrambles for who knows what inbound threat over the Canadian subarctic, the cold North Atlantic and the shark-filled Gulf of Mexico. We were the pathfinders in showing that the Guard and Reserves could become reliable members of the first team in the total force, so proudly evidenced today in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It didn't happen by accident. It happened because back at the nadir of Guard fortunes in the early '70s, a lot of volunteer guardsman showed they were ready and able to accept the responsibilities of soldier and citizen — then and now. Lt. Bush was a kid whose congressman father encouraged him to serve in the Air National Guard. We served proudly in the Guard. Would that Mr. Kerry encourage his children and the children of his colleague senators and congressmen to serve now in the Guard.
In the fighter-pilot world, we have a phrase we use when things are starting to get out of hand and it's time to stop and reset before disaster strikes. We say, "Knock it off." So, Mr. Kerry and your friends who want to slander the Guard: Knock it off.
COL. WILLIAM CAMPENNI (retired)
U.S. Air Force/Air National Guard
Herndon, Va.5
"Spittin' Kittens"???
No siree! A nice dimcrap man says it qualifies me to vote twice!
Bookmarked.Thanks
Here's mine, back in the day
Great story! Thanks for the ping!
Worked with an old Navy Chief that would love this image.
As to the vet sticking up for Bush it's more like sticking it to Kerry and crew.
There it is!!! President Bush is on our ZOT SQUAD!
Durn! Ya beat me to it.
Very nice!
I wish I had one of mine "back in the day"
to share with you.
Tell me...was yours cocky?
Did he swagger?
Those were traits ALL Navy pilots shared. ;o)
I think that's a prerequisite for fighter pilots.
Look under "cocky" in the dictionary. That is his picture ; )
Five servings, fire for effect.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Doubt is sometimes good. I've had to think back. I do seem to recall three National Guard units being activated, but do not recall the circumstances. All were support units. No combat units were activated as I recall.
Another vital factor not discussed enough is the TIMING of the war as it wound down. By the time Bush was applying for the ANG, the war was over the hump. By the time he was a qualified pilot, it was really winding down, and the military was GLUTTED with highly qualified pilots. The military was encouraging pilots in Bush's position to "early out" all the time.
btt
You have a fantastic homepage, btw! Great job!
But in 1974, after studying the issued, growing and maturing, I recognized that the U.S. had a valid reason for aiding an ally that we had a defense treaty with. Other SEATO countries were also aiding the people of South Viet Nam. Our efforts were commendable ... but LBJ and his micromanagement of the war, ham-stringing the military, created the environment until the Viet Nam War was falsely discredited. Kerry himself suggested that the South Vietnamese didn't care, and only a few thousand "upper management" people in SVN would "suffer" if we departed and North Viet Nam took over.
Well, we essentially won the war with heavy bombing in 1972 - and NVN agreed to withdraw and cease hostilities and respect the SVN government. But in 1974, the liberals drove Nixon from office, and the liberals decided not to honor any treaties with SVN ... and they essentially handed the country over to NVN. After the NVN violated the treaty and conquered SVN .... hundreds of thousands died, over a million fled, and millions were placed in "re-education camps." We reneged on our former allies, thanks to liberals like JF'nKerry and Teddy Kennedy.
I became a conservative ... joined the Navy and served active duty for 5 years, reserve now for 24 years. No regrets on my service.
I don't have ANY reservations or questions for our President ... it might be that he wanted to fly, and the Texas National Guard was the fastest route to flying. But he never never never did anything remotely resembling the shameful actions of JF'n Kerry!
Kerry might have "embellished" his record while in Viet Nam. I could live with that. Kerry came back and told lies about the military ... THAT is unforgivable. Kerry disrespected the military honors that were accorded him and other men when he threw ribbons and medals over a fence to "return them to Congress." I don't give a DAMN whether or not he threw his own medals (or just ribbons) over the fence. He admits to throwing other individual's medals over the fence .. and his own ribbons. Well ... those ribbons and medals are symbols of honor, like our American Flag. He might as well have burned or pissed on our flag ... in his effort to dishonor the symbols, he really dishonored himself. I would not vote for him for dog-catcher if he was the only person on the ballot.
But the reason we are dwelling on the Viet Nam War is because Kerry keeps bring it up ... because his Senate record is equally dismal with lack of support to the military, to our ability to gather intelligence (think of his effort to cut intelligence spending by $6 Billion after the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and then he wonders why we didn't better anticipate 9/11).
Mike
I knew many guys who enlisted in the Navy and the Air Force inorder to avoid being drafted. They entered active duty knowing the chances of getting shot at were pretty slim as a sailor or an airman.
We can debate whether or not Bush sought the Guard to avoid the draft. He probably did. Kerry enlisted in the Navy to avoid the draft. There is documentation all over to the Kerry point. Thank you for your service!
MoodyBlu
USAF (1973-77)
"Look under "cocky" in the dictionary. That is his picture ; )"
LOL! I understand totally.
I REALLY do. ;o)
"You have a fantastic homepage, btw! Great job!
Thank you very much for your very kind words. ;o)
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