Posted on 09/03/2004 7:15:01 AM PDT by Bob Hyneman
Cheney’s “five deferments.”
[b][color=orange]In the summer of 1967 D ick Cheney was a married 26 year old man with a daughter.[/color] [/b] Twenty-six year old men cannot be drafted but (gasp) he was married and had a daughter BEFORE he turned 26 and that means he had two deferments!!!
[b](Everyone who had a daughter in 1966 was draft dodger right?).[/b]
Anyway, a half-truth is as good as a truth to John Kerry, so all you need to know is the two deferments part right?
Except, that many many years before the draft, D ick Cheney had also - attended Community College - and then University. Since any slick lawyer-type can tell you transferring schools can legally be counted as two deferments, that brings the total to four. (Never mind that he acquired both of these [b][u]years[/u][/b] before Vietnam was a war, or had draft, or could even be found on the amp by most Americans).
So what is number 5? Well in 1965 the US sent its first contingent of 3,500 Marines to Vietnam. (The draft would begin in earnest in 1966-67), Only a few years earlier in 1964-65, that damn D ick Cheney began applying for graduate schools and grad school acceptance counts as another. (This time Mr. Kerry DID successfully count to five).
So, if you believe John Kerry’s version of events, D ick Cheney began dodging the Vietnam draft five (or six) years before troops were being drafted and sent there. (Look this is politics and ad hominem attacks are allowed but if that is the best you got then you ain't got ad hominems)
[b]The fact is that D ick Cheney: - was accepted to community college - was accepted to the U of Wyoming - was accepted to graduate school - was married - was an expectant father all MORE THAN A YEAR before the draft began.[/b]
I note here that Cheney was married and an expectant father both during grad school and after Kerry COULD count that as SEVEN deferments, (but that would imply the ability to count to seven).
I suppose a 26 year-old daddy with a graduate degree and a newborn daughter COULD have volunteered to go to Vietnam, but I don’t think it is altogether honest to portray him as a draft dodger, do you?
"NOT intended as slur on NAVY..."
Intentions are fine, but remember - words have meaning. :)
Grandpa Prescott had money and was a Senator from Connecticut.
But fact is - in 1969 when GWB volunteered for pilot duty upon graduation from college, the name and faces of the Bush family were hardly as recognizable as today. The lefties seem to think young GWB should have stood out in the crowd and been remembered among his ANG units! Balderdash.
Now Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen (remember him as VP candidate debating VP candidate Bob Dole?) - HIS son did use HIS connections to get into the same ANG unit as Bush. But surely not to do anything dangerous or demanding like flying fighter jets!
Q and A- F-102, Vietnam & George W. Bush
excerpt:
One of the primary ANG units to receive the F-102 was the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron (FIS) at Ellington Air National Guard Station, which operated the aircraft from 1965 through 1974. These planes were given responsibility for patrolling the Gulf Coast and intercepting Soviet Tu-95 bombers that regularly flew off the US shore while carrying a payload of nuclear weapons. The 111th was and still is part of the 147th Fighter Wing in Houston, Texas. It was here that George W. Bush was stationed following his enlistment in May 1968.
It is a common misconception that the Air National Guard was a safe place for military duty during the Vietnam War. In actuality, pilots from the 147th Fighter Interceptor Group, as it was called at the time, were actually conducting combat missions in Vietnam at the very time Bush enlisted. In fact, F-102 squadrons had been stationed in South Vietnam since March 1962. It was during this time that the Kennedy administration began building up a large US military presence in the nation as a deterrent against North Vietnamese invasion.
F-102 squadrons continued to be stationed in South Vietnam and Thailand throughout most of the Vietnam War. The planes were typically used for fighter defense patrols and as escorts for B-52 bomber raids. While the F-102 had few opportunities to engage in its primary role of fighter combat, the aircraft was used in the close air support role starting in 1965. Armed with rocket pods, Delta Daggers would make attacks on Viet Cong encampments in an attempt to harass enemy soldiers. Some missions were even conducted using the aircraft's heat-seeking air-to-air missiles to lock onto enemy campfires at night. Though these missions were never considered to be serious attacks on enemy activity, F-102 pilots did often report secondary explosions coming from their targets.
These missions were also dangerous, given the risks inherent to low-level attacks against armed ground troops. A total of 14 or 15 F-102 fighters were lost in Vietnam. Three were shot down by anti-aircraft or small arms fire, one is believed to have been lost in air-to-air combat with a MiG-21, four were destroyed on the ground during Viet Cong attacks, and the remainder succumbed to training accidents.
Even in peacetime conditions, F-102 pilots risked their lives on every flight. Only highly-qualified pilot candidates were accepted for Delta Dagger training because it was such a challenging aircraft to fly and left little room for mistakes. According to the Air Force Safety Center, the lifetime Class A accident rate for the F-102 was 13.69 mishaps per 100,000 flight hours, much higher than the average for today's combat aircraft. For example, the F-16 has an accident rate of 4.14, the S-3 is at 2.6, the F-15 at 2.47, the F-18 at 4.9, and the F-117 at 4.07. Even the AV-8B, regarded as the most dangerous aircraft in service today, has an accident rate of only 11.05 mishaps per 100,000 flight hours. The F-102 claimed the lives of many pilots, including a number stationed at Ellington during Bush's tenure. Of the 875 F-102A production models that entered service, 259 were lost in accidents that killed 70 Air Force and ANG pilots.
Nevertheless, we have established that the F-102 was serving in combat in Vietnam at the time Bush enlisted to become an F-102 pilot. In fact, pilots from the 147th FIG of the Texas ANG were routinely rotated to Vietnam for combat duty under a program called "Palace Alert" from 1968 to 1970. Palace Alert was an Air Force program that sent qualified F-102 pilots from the ANG to bases in Europe or southeast Asia for periods of three to six months for frontline duty. Fred Bradley, a friend of Bush's who was also serving in the Texas ANG, reported that he and Bush inquired about participating in the Palace Alert program. However, the two were told by a superior, MAJ Maurice Udell, that they were not yet qualified since they were still in training and did not have the 500 hours of flight experience required. Furthermore, ANG veteran COL William Campenni, who was a fellow pilot in the 111th FIS at the time, told the Washington Times that Palace Alert was winding down and not accepting new applicants.
~snip~
The bottom line for Pres. Bush's NG service is not only that he has an honorable discharge, but also that the records show he accumulated at a minimum the required number of points for every year he was in. His first few years he earned 3 and 4 times the required number of points.
It's a matter of record.
I would like an answer to that question too ,my husband was in at the time but was sent to JAPAN instead, I suppose he could have taken a boat to vietnam. I am sorry I dont see CHANEY AS a draft dodger, I dont see CHANEY going to paris to meet with the commies, I dont see CHANEY going to congress to testify against the soldiers and airman and marines, that were still fighting and dying in pow camps, I just dont see that.
Prescott's daddy (granddaddy?) was an Ohio manufacturer....don't remember his name.
I read that, too.
Hold on...didn't Kerry RUN out of deferrments and that is why he enlisted under pressure.
Hold on...didn't Kerry RUN out of deferrments and that is why he enlisted under pressure?
Do anything beside lies come out of sKerry's mouth?
see tagline.
Yeah, people born in 1953 were drafted. (That's my era.)
I believe that 1971 was the first year of the "lottery" draft for 18-year-olds. I remember that 'One (is the Loneliest Number)' by Three Dog Night was a very popular song in those days. The thing is, only a percentage of 18-year-olds were drafted, not all of them.
Clinton actually received a draft notice and I don't think you can assert his avoidance was "perfectly" legal.
Note: I am not commenting further than that, but it is ridiculous to say it was hum-drum run of the mill what every other guy did to avoid service activity and thus "perfectly" legal. It compares in no way whatsoever to Dick Cheney.
We had a bunch of cops from the Nevada Fang sent to Osan in 68...and no they were NOT happy campers.
what WE feel about people who tried to avoid the draft isn't the issue, now is it? the Democrats stood squarely behind the last Prez (Bill C)and he openly avoided the draft. at the time they told us that Vietnam was "behind us." that was then and this is now since they apparently have forgotten their stand and have been launching attacks on Bush and Cheney for the last 9 months. can you spell "hypocrisy"???? or if not, can you spell "flip-flop"?????????????
He must have had a high draft number. I was 18 and starting my freshmen year of college in 1971 and I was drafted my first week of school. College deferments had ended by then.
Of course, he could have volunteered.
"Nevada Fang" ?
He was in college and yes he was avoiding the draft
But what I would like to know is the story behind why his scholarship fell through after he went to college?
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