Of the four pilots I spoke to who flew with Bush in the Texas days, Fred Bradley knew him best. They had met before going off to the year-long ordeal of pilot school, and entered the 111th at about the same time. Both were junior lieutenants without a lot of flying experience. But the inexperience didn't prevent Bush — along with Bradley — from going to their squadron leaders to see if they could get into a program called "Palace Alert." "There were four of us lieutenants at the time, and we were all fairly close. Two of them had more flight time than the president and me, said Bradley." All four volunteered for Vietnam (Bradley doesn't remember whether he and Bush actually signed paperwork, but he specifically remembers both Bush and himself trying to get into the Palace Alert Vietnam program.) Bush and Bradley were turned away, and the two more senior pilots went to Vietnam.So, coupled with Kerry's attempt to get a deferrment in order go to Paris, and then stating on the public record that he joined the Swift Boat program in order to avoid combat, we can come up with some great trivia questions to drive your lefty co-workers/relatives/etc. nuts, such as:
1) Who is the only major-party presidential nominee to volunteer for a combat role in Vietnam?
2) Who sought more deferrments, Kerry or Vice President Cheney? (The vice president did not actively seek his deferrments; they were automatically granted due to his age when the draft was begun in earnest for Vietnam, his marriage before the draft, the birth of his first daughter, his status in college, and his application for graduate school.)
3) Also, where was Bambi (a.k.a. Breck Boy)? He turned 18 in 1971 when the draft was still going on. How many deferrments did he seek?
AUSTIN, Texas -- When George W. Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard in 1968, there was little chance he would ever see Vietnam from the cockpit of his F-102 Delta Dagger jet fighter.
When the plane was in demand overseas, Bush was not yet qualified to fly it. By the time he passed his final combat flight test in June 1970, the Air Force was pulling the jets out of Southeast Asia.
Bush, the Texas governor and presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said in his autobiography that he and a friend, Fred Bailey, tried to join the Palace Alert program that rotated National Guard pilots into Vietnam. A colonel told them only a few more pilots would go and "Fred and I had not logged enough hours to participate," Bush wrote.
Retired Col. Maury Udell, who trained Bush to fly the F-102, has no doubt his pupil was willing to go to Vietnam.Udell agreed that Bush was too inexperienced for Palace Alert, but he said the young man did become a good fighter pilot. "George got really good in air-to-air combat," he said.
Who is the only major-party presidential nominee to volunteer for Swift boat service, because at that time, they were not delployed to hazardous locations?
The draft lottery for Edwards' birth year (1953) was performed on 2/2/72. So while he might have had a student deferment for one term (Nixon canceled them in 12/70?), he could not be called up until 1973. The last men to be drafted were those born in 1952, #85 and less.