Well you did, Colonel, and I don't understand why. I simply must disagree with you in regards to George W. Bush. He didn't fly Thud Ridge, or go Downtown, but so didn't a lot of fighter pilots who served at Bitburg, or Malstrom, or Aviano, or in the Med off a Sixth Fleet carrier, or hundreds of other places. Again, I submit, flying a fighter jet, EVEN in peace time, IS hazardous duty. I don't see signing up for that duty during the Vietnam War as a aims to get out of life-threatening situations. Dubya could have gotten a lot of other, safer duties by far.
The people who join the service, any service, are the best of us in my book. During the Vietnam War, a whole lot of people joined but didn't get assigned to combat (I know a whole lot of them that volunteered to fight but were never assigned "in country".) They were and are solid citizens who served their country every bit as well as those that did go to Vietnam.
However, during the war itself, there were plenty of "service avoiders" that considered the preservation of their own skins superior to dangerous duty and one of those dodges was to pull strings and join the Guard - preferably some unit with very little chance of being called up.
I just don't believe that men who choose to avoid service and avoid combat during time of war should be considered for higher leadership. It's a personal courage/self-sacrifice/integrity thing. Look at what Clinton was and what he became - he dodged the draft and avoided the Vietnam War with every crafty trick that was available - then became one of the weakest and most morally corrupt individuals to occupy the Oval Office. Wasn't the pattern he adopted in his youth indicative of the kind of leader he would become?
Shouldn't we be seeking leaders with known courage instead?