Bush in a landslide, I bet.
Posted on 08/25/2004 1:01:38 AM PDT by kattracks
I wonder if there would be some way to compare the total number of pilots that flew F102's against the total number of people who served in Vietnam. After you did that look at the total number of fatalities. It is my bet that you would find the number by percentage of dead F102 pilots quite high.
I don't remember what Dean Martin's son was flying, but he died in service in the Air Guard. It takes a lot to fly combat aircraft.
Just one more reason that vets (and Guard and Reserves in particular) will be lining up in droves at the polling booths voting for GW (or voting against Kerry in protest).
Bush in a landslide, I bet.
Indeed, he could have a nice safe ground job in the Air Guard. Intell officer, maintaince officer, communications, motor pool, etc, etc. About the same time Lt. Bush was serving in the Texas Air Guard, another son of Texas Congressman was also serving in the Texas Air Gaurd. That man is now, unfortunately, my Congressman, having "inherited" the seat directly for his father. Sort of a South Texas version of the Daleys I guess. Has anyone asked Congressman Charles Gonzales about his time in the Air Guard? I'm pretty sure he wasn't flying F-102s, which were at Kelly as well as at Elington in those days. Interestingly, while I'm quite certain his official biography mentioned that service at one time, it's now nowhere to be found therein. Hmmm? . IIRC, he was in the Guard, as an officer, while he was going to law school. Maybe his ex wife might know something about that?
I have heard that when their college deferments ended (And, yes, I am old enough to remember how that worked), Kerry applied for a deferment to study in Paris. When that was denied, he applied to the Navy Reserve (which was unlikely to be called).
W decided to be a fighter pilot, and applied to the best place to get that slot - the Texas Nat'l Guard. He was more likely to be called up than Kerry was.
It turned out that neither of them got what they thought they would.
I think W is better at dealing with the hand he is given. Kerry has a problem with unexpected situations.
Well Kerry is quite flexable in any given situation.
Thanks for the ping!
Thanks, I did try to find some evidence of his Guard service, since he'd removed it from his official biography.
So how about that, almost the same years as Bush, except he wasn't putting his skinny butt on the line flying a high performance fighter. I still wonder what his AFSC was? IIRC it was actually harder to get into the Air Guard as an enlistee than as a pilot. It was also less of a sacrifice, since most enlisted AFSC's only required the greater of 6 months or however long the combination of basic training and tech school took of initial active duty. Then it required the standard 1 weekend a month and two weeks of service. Pilots put in way more drills, and short periods of active duty as well, than non-flying personnel.
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