Bush wins....get over it....










"Steelgtr62" <steelgtr62@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20040921174913.27979.00001162@mb-m02.aol.com...
> http://www.airforcetimes.com/story.p...PER-357916.php
>
> Issue Date: September 27, 2004
>
> Bush's Air Guard stint started well, then faded into mystery
>
> By William H. McMichael
> Times Staff Writer
>
>

 

Bush wins....get over it....










"Steelgtr62" <steelgtr62@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20040921174913.27979.00001162@mb-m02.aol.com...
> http://www.airforcetimes.com/story.p...PER-357916.php
>
> Issue Date: September 27, 2004
>
> Bush's Air Guard stint started well, then faded into mystery
>
> By William H. McMichael
> Times Staff Writer
>
>

 

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 10:54:41 GMT, "trailboss" <trailboss@optonline.net> wrote:

>Bush wins....get over it....
>


Yah you should see what the bush has done to the paint on my Jeep. I've got
pinstripes from the top of the hardtop to the bottom of the skid plate. <lol>

Of course you were posting about the damage the shrubs and bushes do to our
paint jobs and not something to do with US presidential politics. ;-) Cause
those posts are not welcome here.

Dean

 

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 10:54:41 GMT, "trailboss" <trailboss@optonline.net> wrote:

>Bush wins....get over it....
>


Yah you should see what the bush has done to the paint on my Jeep. I've got
pinstripes from the top of the hardtop to the bottom of the skid plate. <lol>

Of course you were posting about the damage the shrubs and bushes do to our
paint jobs and not something to do with US presidential politics. ;-) Cause
those posts are not welcome here.

Dean

 

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 10:54:41 GMT, "trailboss" <trailboss@optonline.net> wrote:

>Bush wins....get over it....
>


Yah you should see what the bush has done to the paint on my Jeep. I've got
pinstripes from the top of the hardtop to the bottom of the skid plate. <lol>

Of course you were posting about the damage the shrubs and bushes do to our
paint jobs and not something to do with US presidential politics. ;-) Cause
those posts are not welcome here.

Dean

 

Thousands of young men in America did exactly what GWB did, they sought and
found duty that would keep them from the front lines. Big Deal. I did it
just like GWB did. Clinton went to Oxford, which is on an entirely 'nother
continent, but nobody care - well, the liberals didn't care. (My point being
that there is a little bit of a double standard going on here. Clinton made
no claim to his service, and you ignore he had no service, Bush also makes
no claim to his service, but you pick it apart. Kerry made a claim to his
service, but frankly his service and his actions after his service do not
hold up very well under close scrutiny. Since he made his service a
cornerstone of his candidacy, it should be looked at very closely.

We know Bush was in the Guard.
We know Bush got assigned to a unit in Alabama late in '72 and running into
'73.
We know the 'bama unit was not a flying unit, so Bush's flight status
lapsed.
We know the flight status could be reinstated in a matter of hours if he was
to have been reassigned back to Texas.
We know he got out early.
We know he got an Honorable Discharge.

The facts match his story, and his discharge shows the government was
satisfied with his service. Can we please move on to political ---- that
matters, but not here? This is the wrong forum to be discussing this topic.





"Steelgtr62" <steelgtr62@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20040921174913.27979.00001162@mb-m02.aol.com...
> http://www.airforcetimes.com/story.p...PER-357916.php
>
> Issue Date: September 27, 2004
>
> Bush's Air Guard stint started well, then faded into mystery
>
> By William H. McMichael
> Times Staff Writer
>
>
> John F. Kerry's service in Vietnam and his postwar testimonials have been
> targeted all summer by Republican-funded critics and veterans groups - so
> much so that for several months they have obscured George W. Bush's
> much-criticized Vietnam-era service in the National Guard. A renewed
interest
> in Bush's service raised by a critical CBS News report exploded in
> controversy over whether some recently unearthed Bush documents were
actually
> forgeries.
> From most accounts, Bush appears to have received preferential treatment
to get
> into the Air National Guard and avoid the draft after he graduated from
Yale
> University in 1968. He was initially regarded as a good pilot, but his
> performance faded over his final two years in the Guard and he was
suspended
> from flight status. He did not fly for the remaining 18 months he served
in the
> Guard, though he was obligated to do so.
>
> And for significant chunks of time, Bush did not report for duty at all.
His
> superiors took no action, and he was honorably discharged in 1973, six
months
> before he should have been.
>
> In a 2002 interview with USA Today, Dean Roome, a former fighter pilot who
> lived with Bush in the early 1970s, said Bush was a model officer during
the
> first part of his career. But overall, he said, Bush's Air Guard career
was
> erratic - the first three years solid, the last two troubled.
>
> "You wonder if you know who George Bush is," Roome said. "I think he
> digressed after a while. In the first half, he was gung-ho. Where George
failed
> was to fulfill his obligation as a pilot. It was an irrational time in his
> life."
>
> Awaiting the draft
>
> In June 1968, with his student deferment ready to expire when he graduated
from
> Yale, Bush faced the draft, just like hundreds of thousands of other young
> Americans. The controversial Vietnam War was raging, and draftees often
ended
> up in Vietnam's jungles. Thirty-eight percent of the 1.73 million men
drafted
> between 1965 and 1973 served in Vietnam, and draftees accounted for 30.4
> percent of the war's 58,245 combat deaths.
>
> Bush did not get drafted. Instead, two weeks before graduation, he joined
the
> Texas Air National Guard - a so-called "champagne unit" that included
> other sons of rich and influential Texans. He signed up for a six-year
term.
> There was a waiting list, as was the case at most Guard and Reserve units
> throughout the country, because such service was generally considered a
likely
> way to avoid combat (5,977 reservists and 101 guardsmen died in Vietnam).
But
> according to one highly visible source, Bush didn't have to wait.
>
> Former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes told the CBS program "60 Minutes" on
Sept.
> 8 that he'd used his political influence to jump the young Bush ahead of
> "hundreds" of others to get the Guard slot. He'd first said this publicly
> after testifying in a 1999 federal court deposition, saying he'd done the
> favor at the request of a Bush family friend. At the time Bush joined the
Air
> Guard, his father, George H.W. Bush, was serving his first term as a
> congressman from Texas.
>
> "I would describe it as preferential treatment," Barnes, a Democrat who is
> supporting Kerry's presidential bid, told CBS.
>
> For its part, the Bush campaign stands behind the president's service.
"The
> president's proud of his service," said Reed Dickins, a Bush campaign
> spokesman. "The president served honorably, similarly to the thousands of
> National Guard (members) that are serving our country today. The attacks
on
> this president's service have been purely political."
>
> It may be difficult for younger readers to understand the volatility of
this
> issue during the Vietnam era, particularly given the extensive involvement
of
> today's Guard and reserve in Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell's 1995
> book "My American Journey" put it eloquently:
>
> "The policies - determining who would be drafted and who would be
deferred,
> who would serve and who would escape, who would die and who would live -
were
> an antidemocratic disgrace," Powell wrote. "I am angry that so many of the
> sons of the powerful and well placed . managed to wangle slots in reserve
and
> National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class
> discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Ameri
cans
> are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country."
>
> 'Combat ready'
>
> Bush graduated from flight school in 1969, was certified July 9, 1970, as
> "combat ready" in the F-102, and began winning praise for his flight and
> leadership skills. On his April 30, 1971, fitness report, covering 166
> active-duty days over a period of 17 months, he earned high marks.
>
> "Lt. Bush is an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot," wrote his
> commanding officer in the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron in Houston,
Lt.
> Col. Jerry B. Killian. Bush "performed in an outstanding manner . a
natural
> leader."
>
> But from there, Bush's performance slipped. The descent began when Bush
> apparently did not follow an order to report for his annual flight
physical in
> May 1972, which got him grounded.
>
> The grounding was noted in one of the four documents unveiled by CBS -
which
> were given to the White House, which released them to the rest of the
media. It
> appears to be an order signed by Killian suspending Bush from flight
status
> "due to failure to perform to USAF/TexANG standards and failure to meet
> annual physical examination (flight) as ordered."
>
> Handwriting experts hired by many media organizations as well as other
critics
> contend the document, and possibly all four, are forgeries. However,
> Killian's order is confirmed by two documents that were not part of the
CBS
> papers. The first is a White House-released letter from the commander of
the
> 147th Fighter Group, Col. Bobby W. Hodges, to its Texas higher command
dated
> Sept. 5, 1972, with a subject line of "Suspension From Flying Status."
>
> The letter documents the missed flight physical and the suspension,
> "effective 1 Aug 1972." A Sept. 29 order from the National Guard Bureau
> further confirms the missed physical and the suspension.
>
> On May 26, 1972, Bush asked in writing for reassignment to an Air Reserve
> squadron in Alabama so he could work on the U.S. Senate campaign of
Republican
> Winton "Red" Blount, a close friend of his influential father. That was
> rejected because Bush was obligated to serve as a Ready Reservist until
May 26,
> 1974, and was ineligible for assignment to the Air Reserve. About three
months
> later, on Sept. 5, Bush asked to perform "equivalent duty" with the
Alabama
> unit from September to November. Killian approved the request a day later.
The
> orders went through on Sept. 15, and while Bush had missed the Sept. 9-10
unit
> training assembly, the document noted he could make the next two. Bush's
> Officer Military Record shows an Oct. 1, 1973, discharge from the Texas
Air
> National Guard and transfer to the Alabama unit.
>
> Another White House-released document shows a total of 56 points Bush
> apparently earned during this 12-month period, but it's awarded in one
lump
> sum rather than credited for each training period. But this document also
> contains an error, listing Bush's status as "PLT On-Fly" - meaning he
> was on flight status - when he had not been for a year. This, said retired
> Army Lt. Col. Gerald A. Lechliter, who has done an in-depth analysis of
> Bush's pay records (http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/.../lechliter.pdf),
> makes the form's authenticity suspect.
>
> There's also the record of a Jan. 6, 1973, dental exam performed on Bush
at
> Dannelly Air National Guard Base, Ala. There's nothing that documents why
> Bush, who reportedly returned to Texas after the election, didn't get this
> work done closer to home.
>
> Bush's attendance and participation in weekend drills had been
meticulously
> recorded up through May 1972. But other than the points record and the
dental
> exam record, the year following Bush's request for reassignment to Alabama
is
> a blank.
>
> In a fitness report supplement released by the White House this year, an
> administrative officer wrote, "Not rated for the period 1 May 72 through
30
> Apr 73. Report for this period not available for administrative reasons."
>
> In the remarks section, Killian wrote that Bush "has not been observed at
> this unit during the period of report. . He cleared this base on 15 May
1972
> and has been performing equivalent training in a non flying status" with
the
> Alabama unit. Bush, however, was only authorized to be gone from September
to
> November.
>
> 'Don't remember seeing you'
>
> The same day Barnes spoke with CBS, a new pro-Kerry group, Texans for
Truth,
> announced it was launching a TV ad campaign that would attack Bush for
failing
> to perform his duties while temporarily assigned to the Alabama unit.
While it
> wasn't a new accusation, the ad featured a member of that unit who said
> he'd never met the future president.
>
> "I heard George Bush get up and say, 'I served in the 187th Air National
> Guard in Montgomery, Alabama,'" retired Lt. Col. Robert Mintz said on
> camera. "Really? That was my unit. And I don't remember seeing you there.
> ."
>
> On Sept. 5, Bush formally asked Killian for a discharge from the Texas
unit so
> he could attend Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Mass. Two weeks
later,
> Hodges approved the request and honorably discharged Bush,
administratively
> transferring him to Headquarters, Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver.
>
> Two months earlier, on June 30, Bush signed a statement promising that if
he
> left his Texas Ready Reserve unit, "it is my responsibility to locate and
be
> assigned to another Reserve Forces unit or mobilization augmentation
position.
> If I fail to do so, I am subject to involuntary order to active duty for
up to
> 24 months."
>
> There is no record of Bush ever having signed on with a Massachusetts
Reserve
> unit. In 1999, Dan Bartlett, working for the Bush campaign, told The
Washington
> Post that Bush had completed his six-year commitment with a Boston unit.
That
> didn't happen, Bartlett recently told The Boston Globe. "I must have
> misspoke," he said. The following March, Bush was redesignated as an
> "executive support officer." In May, he was placed on inactive status. On
> Nov. 21 - apparently at Bush's written request, according to an undated
> letter sent from Massachusetts and released by the White House in which he
> requests "to discharge from the standby reserve" - he received an
> honorable discharge "from all appointments in the United States Air
Force."
>
>
> Documents in question
>
> The renewed examination of the Bush record, however, has been somewhat
obscured
> by the explosion of media interest in the documents CBS displayed on the
same
> program featuring Barnes.
>
> In a matter of minutes, Internet "bloggers" were raising questions about
> the authenticity of the documents, claiming that that era's typewriters
could
> not have produced some of the typographical elements in the memos and that
they
> were computer-generated forgeries. They also said that Killian's signature
> was either forged or copied from actual documents.
>
> Killian's former secretary, Marian Carr Knox, 86, of Houston, has said she
> believed the memos were fake but their content accurately reflected
Killian's
> opinions.
>
> "I know that I didn't type them," she said in an interview with CBS.
> "However, the information in those is correct."
>
> As of Sept. 16, CBS continued to stand by its reporting.
>
> William H. McMichael covers the Navy from Hampton Roads, Va. Reach him at
(757)
> 223-0096 or by e-mail at bmcmichael@atpco.com
>
>

 

Thousands of young men in America did exactly what GWB did, they sought and
found duty that would keep them from the front lines. Big Deal. I did it
just like GWB did. Clinton went to Oxford, which is on an entirely 'nother
continent, but nobody care - well, the liberals didn't care. (My point being
that there is a little bit of a double standard going on here. Clinton made
no claim to his service, and you ignore he had no service, Bush also makes
no claim to his service, but you pick it apart. Kerry made a claim to his
service, but frankly his service and his actions after his service do not
hold up very well under close scrutiny. Since he made his service a
cornerstone of his candidacy, it should be looked at very closely.

We know Bush was in the Guard.
We know Bush got assigned to a unit in Alabama late in '72 and running into
'73.
We know the 'bama unit was not a flying unit, so Bush's flight status
lapsed.
We know the flight status could be reinstated in a matter of hours if he was
to have been reassigned back to Texas.
We know he got out early.
We know he got an Honorable Discharge.

The facts match his story, and his discharge shows the government was
satisfied with his service. Can we please move on to political ---- that
matters, but not here? This is the wrong forum to be discussing this topic.





"Steelgtr62" <steelgtr62@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20040921174913.27979.00001162@mb-m02.aol.com...
> http://www.airforcetimes.com/story.p...PER-357916.php
>
> Issue Date: September 27, 2004
>
> Bush's Air Guard stint started well, then faded into mystery
>
> By William H. McMichael
> Times Staff Writer
>
>
> John F. Kerry's service in Vietnam and his postwar testimonials have been
> targeted all summer by Republican-funded critics and veterans groups - so
> much so that for several months they have obscured George W. Bush's
> much-criticized Vietnam-era service in the National Guard. A renewed
interest
> in Bush's service raised by a critical CBS News report exploded in
> controversy over whether some recently unearthed Bush documents were
actually
> forgeries.
> From most accounts, Bush appears to have received preferential treatment
to get
> into the Air National Guard and avoid the draft after he graduated from
Yale
> University in 1968. He was initially regarded as a good pilot, but his
> performance faded over his final two years in the Guard and he was
suspended
> from flight status. He did not fly for the remaining 18 months he served
in the
> Guard, though he was obligated to do so.
>
> And for significant chunks of time, Bush did not report for duty at all.
His
> superiors took no action, and he was honorably discharged in 1973, six
months
> before he should have been.
>
> In a 2002 interview with USA Today, Dean Roome, a former fighter pilot who
> lived with Bush in the early 1970s, said Bush was a model officer during
the
> first part of his career. But overall, he said, Bush's Air Guard career
was
> erratic - the first three years solid, the last two troubled.
>
> "You wonder if you know who George Bush is," Roome said. "I think he
> digressed after a while. In the first half, he was gung-ho. Where George
failed
> was to fulfill his obligation as a pilot. It was an irrational time in his
> life."
>
> Awaiting the draft
>
> In June 1968, with his student deferment ready to expire when he graduated
from
> Yale, Bush faced the draft, just like hundreds of thousands of other young
> Americans. The controversial Vietnam War was raging, and draftees often
ended
> up in Vietnam's jungles. Thirty-eight percent of the 1.73 million men
drafted
> between 1965 and 1973 served in Vietnam, and draftees accounted for 30.4
> percent of the war's 58,245 combat deaths.
>
> Bush did not get drafted. Instead, two weeks before graduation, he joined
the
> Texas Air National Guard - a so-called "champagne unit" that included
> other sons of rich and influential Texans. He signed up for a six-year
term.
> There was a waiting list, as was the case at most Guard and Reserve units
> throughout the country, because such service was generally considered a
likely
> way to avoid combat (5,977 reservists and 101 guardsmen died in Vietnam).
But
> according to one highly visible source, Bush didn't have to wait.
>
> Former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes told the CBS program "60 Minutes" on
Sept.
> 8 that he'd used his political influence to jump the young Bush ahead of
> "hundreds" of others to get the Guard slot. He'd first said this publicly
> after testifying in a 1999 federal court deposition, saying he'd done the
> favor at the request of a Bush family friend. At the time Bush joined the
Air
> Guard, his father, George H.W. Bush, was serving his first term as a
> congressman from Texas.
>
> "I would describe it as preferential treatment," Barnes, a Democrat who is
> supporting Kerry's presidential bid, told CBS.
>
> For its part, the Bush campaign stands behind the president's service.
"The
> president's proud of his service," said Reed Dickins, a Bush campaign
> spokesman. "The president served honorably, similarly to the thousands of
> National Guard (members) that are serving our country today. The attacks
on
> this president's service have been purely political."
>
> It may be difficult for younger readers to understand the volatility of
this
> issue during the Vietnam era, particularly given the extensive involvement
of
> today's Guard and reserve in Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell's 1995
> book "My American Journey" put it eloquently:
>
> "The policies - determining who would be drafted and who would be
deferred,
> who would serve and who would escape, who would die and who would live -
were
> an antidemocratic disgrace," Powell wrote. "I am angry that so many of the
> sons of the powerful and well placed . managed to wangle slots in reserve
and
> National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class
> discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Ameri
cans
> are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country."
>
> 'Combat ready'
>
> Bush graduated from flight school in 1969, was certified July 9, 1970, as
> "combat ready" in the F-102, and began winning praise for his flight and
> leadership skills. On his April 30, 1971, fitness report, covering 166
> active-duty days over a period of 17 months, he earned high marks.
>
> "Lt. Bush is an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot," wrote his
> commanding officer in the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron in Houston,
Lt.
> Col. Jerry B. Killian. Bush "performed in an outstanding manner . a
natural
> leader."
>
> But from there, Bush's performance slipped. The descent began when Bush
> apparently did not follow an order to report for his annual flight
physical in
> May 1972, which got him grounded.
>
> The grounding was noted in one of the four documents unveiled by CBS -
which
> were given to the White House, which released them to the rest of the
media. It
> appears to be an order signed by Killian suspending Bush from flight
status
> "due to failure to perform to USAF/TexANG standards and failure to meet
> annual physical examination (flight) as ordered."
>
> Handwriting experts hired by many media organizations as well as other
critics
> contend the document, and possibly all four, are forgeries. However,
> Killian's order is confirmed by two documents that were not part of the
CBS
> papers. The first is a White House-released letter from the commander of
the
> 147th Fighter Group, Col. Bobby W. Hodges, to its Texas higher command
dated
> Sept. 5, 1972, with a subject line of "Suspension From Flying Status."
>
> The letter documents the missed flight physical and the suspension,
> "effective 1 Aug 1972." A Sept. 29 order from the National Guard Bureau
> further confirms the missed physical and the suspension.
>
> On May 26, 1972, Bush asked in writing for reassignment to an Air Reserve
> squadron in Alabama so he could work on the U.S. Senate campaign of
Republican
> Winton "Red" Blount, a close friend of his influential father. That was
> rejected because Bush was obligated to serve as a Ready Reservist until
May 26,
> 1974, and was ineligible for assignment to the Air Reserve. About three
months
> later, on Sept. 5, Bush asked to perform "equivalent duty" with the
Alabama
> unit from September to November. Killian approved the request a day later.
The
> orders went through on Sept. 15, and while Bush had missed the Sept. 9-10
unit
> training assembly, the document noted he could make the next two. Bush's
> Officer Military Record shows an Oct. 1, 1973, discharge from the Texas
Air
> National Guard and transfer to the Alabama unit.
>
> Another White House-released document shows a total of 56 points Bush
> apparently earned during this 12-month period, but it's awarded in one
lump
> sum rather than credited for each training period. But this document also
> contains an error, listing Bush's status as "PLT On-Fly" - meaning he
> was on flight status - when he had not been for a year. This, said retired
> Army Lt. Col. Gerald A. Lechliter, who has done an in-depth analysis of
> Bush's pay records (http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/.../lechliter.pdf),
> makes the form's authenticity suspect.
>
> There's also the record of a Jan. 6, 1973, dental exam performed on Bush
at
> Dannelly Air National Guard Base, Ala. There's nothing that documents why
> Bush, who reportedly returned to Texas after the election, didn't get this
> work done closer to home.
>
> Bush's attendance and participation in weekend drills had been
meticulously
> recorded up through May 1972. But other than the points record and the
dental
> exam record, the year following Bush's request for reassignment to Alabama
is
> a blank.
>
> In a fitness report supplement released by the White House this year, an
> administrative officer wrote, "Not rated for the period 1 May 72 through
30
> Apr 73. Report for this period not available for administrative reasons."
>
> In the remarks section, Killian wrote that Bush "has not been observed at
> this unit during the period of report. . He cleared this base on 15 May
1972
> and has been performing equivalent training in a non flying status" with
the
> Alabama unit. Bush, however, was only authorized to be gone from September
to
> November.
>
> 'Don't remember seeing you'
>
> The same day Barnes spoke with CBS, a new pro-Kerry group, Texans for
Truth,
> announced it was launching a TV ad campaign that would attack Bush for
failing
> to perform his duties while temporarily assigned to the Alabama unit.
While it
> wasn't a new accusation, the ad featured a member of that unit who said
> he'd never met the future president.
>
> "I heard George Bush get up and say, 'I served in the 187th Air National
> Guard in Montgomery, Alabama,'" retired Lt. Col. Robert Mintz said on
> camera. "Really? That was my unit. And I don't remember seeing you there.
> ."
>
> On Sept. 5, Bush formally asked Killian for a discharge from the Texas
unit so
> he could attend Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Mass. Two weeks
later,
> Hodges approved the request and honorably discharged Bush,
administratively
> transferring him to Headquarters, Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver.
>
> Two months earlier, on June 30, Bush signed a statement promising that if
he
> left his Texas Ready Reserve unit, "it is my responsibility to locate and
be
> assigned to another Reserve Forces unit or mobilization augmentation
position.
> If I fail to do so, I am subject to involuntary order to active duty for
up to
> 24 months."
>
> There is no record of Bush ever having signed on with a Massachusetts
Reserve
> unit. In 1999, Dan Bartlett, working for the Bush campaign, told The
Washington
> Post that Bush had completed his six-year commitment with a Boston unit.
That
> didn't happen, Bartlett recently told The Boston Globe. "I must have
> misspoke," he said. The following March, Bush was redesignated as an
> "executive support officer." In May, he was placed on inactive status. On
> Nov. 21 - apparently at Bush's written request, according to an undated
> letter sent from Massachusetts and released by the White House in which he
> requests "to discharge from the standby reserve" - he received an
> honorable discharge "from all appointments in the United States Air
Force."
>
>
> Documents in question
>
> The renewed examination of the Bush record, however, has been somewhat
obscured
> by the explosion of media interest in the documents CBS displayed on the
same
> program featuring Barnes.
>
> In a matter of minutes, Internet "bloggers" were raising questions about
> the authenticity of the documents, claiming that that era's typewriters
could
> not have produced some of the typographical elements in the memos and that
they
> were computer-generated forgeries. They also said that Killian's signature
> was either forged or copied from actual documents.
>
> Killian's former secretary, Marian Carr Knox, 86, of Houston, has said she
> believed the memos were fake but their content accurately reflected
Killian's
> opinions.
>
> "I know that I didn't type them," she said in an interview with CBS.
> "However, the information in those is correct."
>
> As of Sept. 16, CBS continued to stand by its reporting.
>
> William H. McMichael covers the Navy from Hampton Roads, Va. Reach him at
(757)
> 223-0096 or by e-mail at bmcmichael@atpco.com
>
>

 

Thousands of young men in America did exactly what GWB did, they sought and
found duty that would keep them from the front lines. Big Deal. I did it
just like GWB did. Clinton went to Oxford, which is on an entirely 'nother
continent, but nobody care - well, the liberals didn't care. (My point being
that there is a little bit of a double standard going on here. Clinton made
no claim to his service, and you ignore he had no service, Bush also makes
no claim to his service, but you pick it apart. Kerry made a claim to his
service, but frankly his service and his actions after his service do not
hold up very well under close scrutiny. Since he made his service a
cornerstone of his candidacy, it should be looked at very closely.

We know Bush was in the Guard.
We know Bush got assigned to a unit in Alabama late in '72 and running into
'73.
We know the 'bama unit was not a flying unit, so Bush's flight status
lapsed.
We know the flight status could be reinstated in a matter of hours if he was
to have been reassigned back to Texas.
We know he got out early.
We know he got an Honorable Discharge.

The facts match his story, and his discharge shows the government was
satisfied with his service. Can we please move on to political ---- that
matters, but not here? This is the wrong forum to be discussing this topic.





"Steelgtr62" <steelgtr62@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20040921174913.27979.00001162@mb-m02.aol.com...
> http://www.airforcetimes.com/story.p...PER-357916.php
>
> Issue Date: September 27, 2004
>
> Bush's Air Guard stint started well, then faded into mystery
>
> By William H. McMichael
> Times Staff Writer
>
>
> John F. Kerry's service in Vietnam and his postwar testimonials have been
> targeted all summer by Republican-funded critics and veterans groups - so
> much so that for several months they have obscured George W. Bush's
> much-criticized Vietnam-era service in the National Guard. A renewed
interest
> in Bush's service raised by a critical CBS News report exploded in
> controversy over whether some recently unearthed Bush documents were
actually
> forgeries.
> From most accounts, Bush appears to have received preferential treatment
to get
> into the Air National Guard and avoid the draft after he graduated from
Yale
> University in 1968. He was initially regarded as a good pilot, but his
> performance faded over his final two years in the Guard and he was
suspended
> from flight status. He did not fly for the remaining 18 months he served
in the
> Guard, though he was obligated to do so.
>
> And for significant chunks of time, Bush did not report for duty at all.
His
> superiors took no action, and he was honorably discharged in 1973, six
months
> before he should have been.
>
> In a 2002 interview with USA Today, Dean Roome, a former fighter pilot who
> lived with Bush in the early 1970s, said Bush was a model officer during
the
> first part of his career. But overall, he said, Bush's Air Guard career
was
> erratic - the first three years solid, the last two troubled.
>
> "You wonder if you know who George Bush is," Roome said. "I think he
> digressed after a while. In the first half, he was gung-ho. Where George
failed
> was to fulfill his obligation as a pilot. It was an irrational time in his
> life."
>
> Awaiting the draft
>
> In June 1968, with his student deferment ready to expire when he graduated
from
> Yale, Bush faced the draft, just like hundreds of thousands of other young
> Americans. The controversial Vietnam War was raging, and draftees often
ended
> up in Vietnam's jungles. Thirty-eight percent of the 1.73 million men
drafted
> between 1965 and 1973 served in Vietnam, and draftees accounted for 30.4
> percent of the war's 58,245 combat deaths.
>
> Bush did not get drafted. Instead, two weeks before graduation, he joined
the
> Texas Air National Guard - a so-called "champagne unit" that included
> other sons of rich and influential Texans. He signed up for a six-year
term.
> There was a waiting list, as was the case at most Guard and Reserve units
> throughout the country, because such service was generally considered a
likely
> way to avoid combat (5,977 reservists and 101 guardsmen died in Vietnam).
But
> according to one highly visible source, Bush didn't have to wait.
>
> Former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes told the CBS program "60 Minutes" on
Sept.
> 8 that he'd used his political influence to jump the young Bush ahead of
> "hundreds" of others to get the Guard slot. He'd first said this publicly
> after testifying in a 1999 federal court deposition, saying he'd done the
> favor at the request of a Bush family friend. At the time Bush joined the
Air
> Guard, his father, George H.W. Bush, was serving his first term as a
> congressman from Texas.
>
> "I would describe it as preferential treatment," Barnes, a Democrat who is
> supporting Kerry's presidential bid, told CBS.
>
> For its part, the Bush campaign stands behind the president's service.
"The
> president's proud of his service," said Reed Dickins, a Bush campaign
> spokesman. "The president served honorably, similarly to the thousands of
> National Guard (members) that are serving our country today. The attacks
on
> this president's service have been purely political."
>
> It may be difficult for younger readers to understand the volatility of
this
> issue during the Vietnam era, particularly given the extensive involvement
of
> today's Guard and reserve in Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell's 1995
> book "My American Journey" put it eloquently:
>
> "The policies - determining who would be drafted and who would be
deferred,
> who would serve and who would escape, who would die and who would live -
were
> an antidemocratic disgrace," Powell wrote. "I am angry that so many of the
> sons of the powerful and well placed . managed to wangle slots in reserve
and
> National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class
> discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Ameri
cans
> are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country."
>
> 'Combat ready'
>
> Bush graduated from flight school in 1969, was certified July 9, 1970, as
> "combat ready" in the F-102, and began winning praise for his flight and
> leadership skills. On his April 30, 1971, fitness report, covering 166
> active-duty days over a period of 17 months, he earned high marks.
>
> "Lt. Bush is an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot," wrote his
> commanding officer in the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron in Houston,
Lt.
> Col. Jerry B. Killian. Bush "performed in an outstanding manner . a
natural
> leader."
>
> But from there, Bush's performance slipped. The descent began when Bush
> apparently did not follow an order to report for his annual flight
physical in
> May 1972, which got him grounded.
>
> The grounding was noted in one of the four documents unveiled by CBS -
which
> were given to the White House, which released them to the rest of the
media. It
> appears to be an order signed by Killian suspending Bush from flight
status
> "due to failure to perform to USAF/TexANG standards and failure to meet
> annual physical examination (flight) as ordered."
>
> Handwriting experts hired by many media organizations as well as other
critics
> contend the document, and possibly all four, are forgeries. However,
> Killian's order is confirmed by two documents that were not part of the
CBS
> papers. The first is a White House-released letter from the commander of
the
> 147th Fighter Group, Col. Bobby W. Hodges, to its Texas higher command
dated
> Sept. 5, 1972, with a subject line of "Suspension From Flying Status."
>
> The letter documents the missed flight physical and the suspension,
> "effective 1 Aug 1972." A Sept. 29 order from the National Guard Bureau
> further confirms the missed physical and the suspension.
>
> On May 26, 1972, Bush asked in writing for reassignment to an Air Reserve
> squadron in Alabama so he could work on the U.S. Senate campaign of
Republican
> Winton "Red" Blount, a close friend of his influential father. That was
> rejected because Bush was obligated to serve as a Ready Reservist until
May 26,
> 1974, and was ineligible for assignment to the Air Reserve. About three
months
> later, on Sept. 5, Bush asked to perform "equivalent duty" with the
Alabama
> unit from September to November. Killian approved the request a day later.
The
> orders went through on Sept. 15, and while Bush had missed the Sept. 9-10
unit
> training assembly, the document noted he could make the next two. Bush's
> Officer Military Record shows an Oct. 1, 1973, discharge from the Texas
Air
> National Guard and transfer to the Alabama unit.
>
> Another White House-released document shows a total of 56 points Bush
> apparently earned during this 12-month period, but it's awarded in one
lump
> sum rather than credited for each training period. But this document also
> contains an error, listing Bush's status as "PLT On-Fly" - meaning he
> was on flight status - when he had not been for a year. This, said retired
> Army Lt. Col. Gerald A. Lechliter, who has done an in-depth analysis of
> Bush's pay records (http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/.../lechliter.pdf),
> makes the form's authenticity suspect.
>
> There's also the record of a Jan. 6, 1973, dental exam performed on Bush
at
> Dannelly Air National Guard Base, Ala. There's nothing that documents why
> Bush, who reportedly returned to Texas after the election, didn't get this
> work done closer to home.
>
> Bush's attendance and participation in weekend drills had been
meticulously
> recorded up through May 1972. But other than the points record and the
dental
> exam record, the year following Bush's request for reassignment to Alabama
is
> a blank.
>
> In a fitness report supplement released by the White House this year, an
> administrative officer wrote, "Not rated for the period 1 May 72 through
30
> Apr 73. Report for this period not available for administrative reasons."
>
> In the remarks section, Killian wrote that Bush "has not been observed at
> this unit during the period of report. . He cleared this base on 15 May
1972
> and has been performing equivalent training in a non flying status" with
the
> Alabama unit. Bush, however, was only authorized to be gone from September
to
> November.
>
> 'Don't remember seeing you'
>
> The same day Barnes spoke with CBS, a new pro-Kerry group, Texans for
Truth,
> announced it was launching a TV ad campaign that would attack Bush for
failing
> to perform his duties while temporarily assigned to the Alabama unit.
While it
> wasn't a new accusation, the ad featured a member of that unit who said
> he'd never met the future president.
>
> "I heard George Bush get up and say, 'I served in the 187th Air National
> Guard in Montgomery, Alabama,'" retired Lt. Col. Robert Mintz said on
> camera. "Really? That was my unit. And I don't remember seeing you there.
> ."
>
> On Sept. 5, Bush formally asked Killian for a discharge from the Texas
unit so
> he could attend Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Mass. Two weeks
later,
> Hodges approved the request and honorably discharged Bush,
administratively
> transferring him to Headquarters, Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver.
>
> Two months earlier, on June 30, Bush signed a statement promising that if
he
> left his Texas Ready Reserve unit, "it is my responsibility to locate and
be
> assigned to another Reserve Forces unit or mobilization augmentation
position.
> If I fail to do so, I am subject to involuntary order to active duty for
up to
> 24 months."
>
> There is no record of Bush ever having signed on with a Massachusetts
Reserve
> unit. In 1999, Dan Bartlett, working for the Bush campaign, told The
Washington
> Post that Bush had completed his six-year commitment with a Boston unit.
That
> didn't happen, Bartlett recently told The Boston Globe. "I must have
> misspoke," he said. The following March, Bush was redesignated as an
> "executive support officer." In May, he was placed on inactive status. On
> Nov. 21 - apparently at Bush's written request, according to an undated
> letter sent from Massachusetts and released by the White House in which he
> requests "to discharge from the standby reserve" - he received an
> honorable discharge "from all appointments in the United States Air
Force."
>
>
> Documents in question
>
> The renewed examination of the Bush record, however, has been somewhat
obscured
> by the explosion of media interest in the documents CBS displayed on the
same
> program featuring Barnes.
>
> In a matter of minutes, Internet "bloggers" were raising questions about
> the authenticity of the documents, claiming that that era's typewriters
could
> not have produced some of the typographical elements in the memos and that
they
> were computer-generated forgeries. They also said that Killian's signature
> was either forged or copied from actual documents.
>
> Killian's former secretary, Marian Carr Knox, 86, of Houston, has said she
> believed the memos were fake but their content accurately reflected
Killian's
> opinions.
>
> "I know that I didn't type them," she said in an interview with CBS.
> "However, the information in those is correct."
>
> As of Sept. 16, CBS continued to stand by its reporting.
>
> William H. McMichael covers the Navy from Hampton Roads, Va. Reach him at
(757)
> 223-0096 or by e-mail at bmcmichael@atpco.com
>
>

 

All of us draftees were were assigned to the Reserves, once we
completed our two years of active service. Some of us believed we had to
make another four years of meetings, but we, and GW didn't, I did keep
the orders: http://www.----------.com/reserveTransfer.jpg and
http://www.----------.com/discharge.jpg
God Bless America, ßill O|||||||O
mailto:-------------------- http://www.----------.com/

CRWLR wrote:
>
> Thousands of young men in America did exactly what GWB did, they sought and
> found duty that would keep them from the front lines. Big Deal. I did it
> just like GWB did. Clinton went to Oxford, which is on an entirely 'nother
> continent, but nobody care - well, the liberals didn't care. (My point being
> that there is a little bit of a double standard going on here. Clinton made
> no claim to his service, and you ignore he had no service, Bush also makes
> no claim to his service, but you pick it apart. Kerry made a claim to his
> service, but frankly his service and his actions after his service do not
> hold up very well under close scrutiny. Since he made his service a
> cornerstone of his candidacy, it should be looked at very closely.
>
> We know Bush was in the Guard.
> We know Bush got assigned to a unit in Alabama late in '72 and running into
> '73.
> We know the 'bama unit was not a flying unit, so Bush's flight status
> lapsed.
> We know the flight status could be reinstated in a matter of hours if he was
> to have been reassigned back to Texas.
> We know he got out early.
> We know he got an Honorable Discharge.
>
> The facts match his story, and his discharge shows the government was
> satisfied with his service. Can we please move on to political ---- that
> matters, but not here? This is the wrong forum to be discussing this topic.
>
> "Steelgtr62" <steelgtr62@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:20040921174913.27979.00001162@mb-m02.aol.com...
> > http://www.airforcetimes.com/story.p...PER-357916.php
> >
> > Issue Date: September 27, 2004
> >
> > Bush's Air Guard stint started well, then faded into mystery
> >
> > By William H. McMichael
> > Times Staff Writer
> >
> >
> > John F. Kerry's service in Vietnam and his postwar testimonials have been
> > targeted all summer by Republican-funded critics and veterans groups - so
> > much so that for several months they have obscured George W. Bush's
> > much-criticized Vietnam-era service in the National Guard. A renewed
> interest
> > in Bush's service raised by a critical CBS News report exploded in
> > controversy over whether some recently unearthed Bush documents were
> actually
> > forgeries.
> > From most accounts, Bush appears to have received preferential treatment
> to get
> > into the Air National Guard and avoid the draft after he graduated from
> Yale
> > University in 1968. He was initially regarded as a good pilot, but his
> > performance faded over his final two years in the Guard and he was
> suspended
> > from flight status. He did not fly for the remaining 18 months he served
> in the
> > Guard, though he was obligated to do so.
> >
> > And for significant chunks of time, Bush did not report for duty at all.
> His
> > superiors took no action, and he was honorably discharged in 1973, six
> months
> > before he should have been.
> >
> > In a 2002 interview with USA Today, Dean Roome, a former fighter pilot who
> > lived with Bush in the early 1970s, said Bush was a model officer during
> the
> > first part of his career. But overall, he said, Bush's Air Guard career
> was
> > erratic - the first three years solid, the last two troubled.
> >
> > "You wonder if you know who George Bush is," Roome said. "I think he
> > digressed after a while. In the first half, he was gung-ho. Where George
> failed
> > was to fulfill his obligation as a pilot. It was an irrational time in his
> > life."
> >
> > Awaiting the draft
> >
> > In June 1968, with his student deferment ready to expire when he graduated
> from
> > Yale, Bush faced the draft, just like hundreds of thousands of other young
> > Americans. The controversial Vietnam War was raging, and draftees often
> ended
> > up in Vietnam's jungles. Thirty-eight percent of the 1.73 million men
> drafted
> > between 1965 and 1973 served in Vietnam, and draftees accounted for 30.4
> > percent of the war's 58,245 combat deaths.
> >
> > Bush did not get drafted. Instead, two weeks before graduation, he joined
> the
> > Texas Air National Guard - a so-called "champagne unit" that included
> > other sons of rich and influential Texans. He signed up for a six-year
> term.
> > There was a waiting list, as was the case at most Guard and Reserve units
> > throughout the country, because such service was generally considered a
> likely
> > way to avoid combat (5,977 reservists and 101 guardsmen died in Vietnam).
> But
> > according to one highly visible source, Bush didn't have to wait.
> >
> > Former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes told the CBS program "60 Minutes" on
> Sept.
> > 8 that he'd used his political influence to jump the young Bush ahead of
> > "hundreds" of others to get the Guard slot. He'd first said this publicly
> > after testifying in a 1999 federal court deposition, saying he'd done the
> > favor at the request of a Bush family friend. At the time Bush joined the
> Air
> > Guard, his father, George H.W. Bush, was serving his first term as a
> > congressman from Texas.
> >
> > "I would describe it as preferential treatment," Barnes, a Democrat who is
> > supporting Kerry's presidential bid, told CBS.
> >
> > For its part, the Bush campaign stands behind the president's service.
> "The
> > president's proud of his service," said Reed Dickins, a Bush campaign
> > spokesman. "The president served honorably, similarly to the thousands of
> > National Guard (members) that are serving our country today. The attacks
> on
> > this president's service have been purely political."
> >
> > It may be difficult for younger readers to understand the volatility of
> this
> > issue during the Vietnam era, particularly given the extensive involvement
> of
> > today's Guard and reserve in Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell's 1995
> > book "My American Journey" put it eloquently:
> >
> > "The policies - determining who would be drafted and who would be
> deferred,
> > who would serve and who would escape, who would die and who would live -
> were
> > an antidemocratic disgrace," Powell wrote. "I am angry that so many of the
> > sons of the powerful and well placed . managed to wangle slots in reserve
> and
> > National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class
> > discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Ameri
> cans
> > are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country."
> >
> > 'Combat ready'
> >
> > Bush graduated from flight school in 1969, was certified July 9, 1970, as
> > "combat ready" in the F-102, and began winning praise for his flight and
> > leadership skills. On his April 30, 1971, fitness report, covering 166
> > active-duty days over a period of 17 months, he earned high marks.
> >
> > "Lt. Bush is an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot," wrote his
> > commanding officer in the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron in Houston,
> Lt.
> > Col. Jerry B. Killian. Bush "performed in an outstanding manner . a
> natural
> > leader."
> >
> > But from there, Bush's performance slipped. The descent began when Bush
> > apparently did not follow an order to report for his annual flight
> physical in
> > May 1972, which got him grounded.
> >
> > The grounding was noted in one of the four documents unveiled by CBS -
> which
> > were given to the White House, which released them to the rest of the
> media. It
> > appears to be an order signed by Killian suspending Bush from flight
> status
> > "due to failure to perform to USAF/TexANG standards and failure to meet
> > annual physical examination (flight) as ordered."
> >
> > Handwriting experts hired by many media organizations as well as other
> critics
> > contend the document, and possibly all four, are forgeries. However,
> > Killian's order is confirmed by two documents that were not part of the
> CBS
> > papers. The first is a White House-released letter from the commander of
> the
> > 147th Fighter Group, Col. Bobby W. Hodges, to its Texas higher command
> dated
> > Sept. 5, 1972, with a subject line of "Suspension From Flying Status."
> >
> > The letter documents the missed flight physical and the suspension,
> > "effective 1 Aug 1972." A Sept. 29 order from the National Guard Bureau
> > further confirms the missed physical and the suspension.
> >
> > On May 26, 1972, Bush asked in writing for reassignment to an Air Reserve
> > squadron in Alabama so he could work on the U.S. Senate campaign of
> Republican
> > Winton "Red" Blount, a close friend of his influential father. That was
> > rejected because Bush was obligated to serve as a Ready Reservist until
> May 26,
> > 1974, and was ineligible for assignment to the Air Reserve. About three
> months
> > later, on Sept. 5, Bush asked to perform "equivalent duty" with the
> Alabama
> > unit from September to November. Killian approved the request a day later.
> The
> > orders went through on Sept. 15, and while Bush had missed the Sept. 9-10
> unit
> > training assembly, the document noted he could make the next two. Bush's
> > Officer Military Record shows an Oct. 1, 1973, discharge from the Texas
> Air
> > National Guard and transfer to the Alabama unit.
> >
> > Another White House-released document shows a total of 56 points Bush
> > apparently earned during this 12-month period, but it's awarded in one
> lump
> > sum rather than credited for each training period. But this document also
> > contains an error, listing Bush's status as "PLT On-Fly" - meaning he
> > was on flight status - when he had not been for a year. This, said retired
> > Army Lt. Col. Gerald A. Lechliter, who has done an in-depth analysis of
> > Bush's pay records (http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/.../lechliter.pdf),
> > makes the form's authenticity suspect.
> >
> > There's also the record of a Jan. 6, 1973, dental exam performed on Bush
> at
> > Dannelly Air National Guard Base, Ala. There's nothing that documents why
> > Bush, who reportedly returned to Texas after the election, didn't get this
> > work done closer to home.
> >
> > Bush's attendance and participation in weekend drills had been
> meticulously
> > recorded up through May 1972. But other than the points record and the
> dental
> > exam record, the year following Bush's request for reassignment to Alabama
> is
> > a blank.
> >
> > In a fitness report supplement released by the White House this year, an
> > administrative officer wrote, "Not rated for the period 1 May 72 through
> 30
> > Apr 73. Report for this period not available for administrative reasons."
> >
> > In the remarks section, Killian wrote that Bush "has not been observed at
> > this unit during the period of report. . He cleared this base on 15 May
> 1972
> > and has been performing equivalent training in a non flying status" with
> the
> > Alabama unit. Bush, however, was only authorized to be gone from September
> to
> > November.
> >
> > 'Don't remember seeing you'
> >
> > The same day Barnes spoke with CBS, a new pro-Kerry group, Texans for
> Truth,
> > announced it was launching a TV ad campaign that would attack Bush for
> failing
> > to perform his duties while temporarily assigned to the Alabama unit.
> While it
> > wasn't a new accusation, the ad featured a member of that unit who said
> > he'd never met the future president.
> >
> > "I heard George Bush get up and say, 'I served in the 187th Air National
> > Guard in Montgomery, Alabama,'" retired Lt. Col. Robert Mintz said on
> > camera. "Really? That was my unit. And I don't remember seeing you there.
> > ."
> >
> > On Sept. 5, Bush formally asked Killian for a discharge from the Texas
> unit so
> > he could attend Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Mass. Two weeks
> later,
> > Hodges approved the request and honorably discharged Bush,
> administratively
> > transferring him to Headquarters, Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver.
> >
> > Two months earlier, on June 30, Bush signed a statement promising that if
> he
> > left his Texas Ready Reserve unit, "it is my responsibility to locate and
> be
> > assigned to another Reserve Forces unit or mobilization augmentation
> position.
> > If I fail to do so, I am subject to involuntary order to active duty for
> up to
> > 24 months."
> >
> > There is no record of Bush ever having signed on with a Massachusetts
> Reserve
> > unit. In 1999, Dan Bartlett, working for the Bush campaign, told The
> Washington
> > Post that Bush had completed his six-year commitment with a Boston unit.
> That
> > didn't happen, Bartlett recently told The Boston Globe. "I must have
> > misspoke," he said. The following March, Bush was redesignated as an
> > "executive support officer." In May, he was placed on inactive status. On
> > Nov. 21 - apparently at Bush's written request, according to an undated
> > letter sent from Massachusetts and released by the White House in which he
> > requests "to discharge from the standby reserve" - he received an
> > honorable discharge "from all appointments in the United States Air
> Force."
> >
> >
> > Documents in question
> >
> > The renewed examination of the Bush record, however, has been somewhat
> obscured
> > by the explosion of media interest in the documents CBS displayed on the
> same
> > program featuring Barnes.
> >
> > In a matter of minutes, Internet "bloggers" were raising questions about
> > the authenticity of the documents, claiming that that era's typewriters
> could
> > not have produced some of the typographical elements in the memos and that
> they
> > were computer-generated forgeries. They also said that Killian's signature
> > was either forged or copied from actual documents.
> >
> > Killian's former secretary, Marian Carr Knox, 86, of Houston, has said she
> > believed the memos were fake but their content accurately reflected
> Killian's
> > opinions.
> >
> > "I know that I didn't type them," she said in an interview with CBS.
> > "However, the information in those is correct."
> >
> > As of Sept. 16, CBS continued to stand by its reporting.
> >
> > William H. McMichael covers the Navy from Hampton Roads, Va. Reach him at
> (757)
> > 223-0096 or by e-mail at bmcmichael@atpco.com
> >
> >

 

All of us draftees were were assigned to the Reserves, once we
completed our two years of active service. Some of us believed we had to
make another four years of meetings, but we, and GW didn't, I did keep
the orders: http://www.----------.com/reserveTransfer.jpg and
http://www.----------.com/discharge.jpg
God Bless America, ßill O|||||||O
mailto:-------------------- http://www.----------.com/

CRWLR wrote:
>
> Thousands of young men in America did exactly what GWB did, they sought and
> found duty that would keep them from the front lines. Big Deal. I did it
> just like GWB did. Clinton went to Oxford, which is on an entirely 'nother
> continent, but nobody care - well, the liberals didn't care. (My point being
> that there is a little bit of a double standard going on here. Clinton made
> no claim to his service, and you ignore he had no service, Bush also makes
> no claim to his service, but you pick it apart. Kerry made a claim to his
> service, but frankly his service and his actions after his service do not
> hold up very well under close scrutiny. Since he made his service a
> cornerstone of his candidacy, it should be looked at very closely.
>
> We know Bush was in the Guard.
> We know Bush got assigned to a unit in Alabama late in '72 and running into
> '73.
> We know the 'bama unit was not a flying unit, so Bush's flight status
> lapsed.
> We know the flight status could be reinstated in a matter of hours if he was
> to have been reassigned back to Texas.
> We know he got out early.
> We know he got an Honorable Discharge.
>
> The facts match his story, and his discharge shows the government was
> satisfied with his service. Can we please move on to political ---- that
> matters, but not here? This is the wrong forum to be discussing this topic.
>
> "Steelgtr62" <steelgtr62@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:20040921174913.27979.00001162@mb-m02.aol.com...
> > http://www.airforcetimes.com/story.p...PER-357916.php
> >
> > Issue Date: September 27, 2004
> >
> > Bush's Air Guard stint started well, then faded into mystery
> >
> > By William H. McMichael
> > Times Staff Writer
> >
> >
> > John F. Kerry's service in Vietnam and his postwar testimonials have been
> > targeted all summer by Republican-funded critics and veterans groups - so
> > much so that for several months they have obscured George W. Bush's
> > much-criticized Vietnam-era service in the National Guard. A renewed
> interest
> > in Bush's service raised by a critical CBS News report exploded in
> > controversy over whether some recently unearthed Bush documents were
> actually
> > forgeries.
> > From most accounts, Bush appears to have received preferential treatment
> to get
> > into the Air National Guard and avoid the draft after he graduated from
> Yale
> > University in 1968. He was initially regarded as a good pilot, but his
> > performance faded over his final two years in the Guard and he was
> suspended
> > from flight status. He did not fly for the remaining 18 months he served
> in the
> > Guard, though he was obligated to do so.
> >
> > And for significant chunks of time, Bush did not report for duty at all.
> His
> > superiors took no action, and he was honorably discharged in 1973, six
> months
> > before he should have been.
> >
> > In a 2002 interview with USA Today, Dean Roome, a former fighter pilot who
> > lived with Bush in the early 1970s, said Bush was a model officer during
> the
> > first part of his career. But overall, he said, Bush's Air Guard career
> was
> > erratic - the first three years solid, the last two troubled.
> >
> > "You wonder if you know who George Bush is," Roome said. "I think he
> > digressed after a while. In the first half, he was gung-ho. Where George
> failed
> > was to fulfill his obligation as a pilot. It was an irrational time in his
> > life."
> >
> > Awaiting the draft
> >
> > In June 1968, with his student deferment ready to expire when he graduated
> from
> > Yale, Bush faced the draft, just like hundreds of thousands of other young
> > Americans. The controversial Vietnam War was raging, and draftees often
> ended
> > up in Vietnam's jungles. Thirty-eight percent of the 1.73 million men
> drafted
> > between 1965 and 1973 served in Vietnam, and draftees accounted for 30.4
> > percent of the war's 58,245 combat deaths.
> >
> > Bush did not get drafted. Instead, two weeks before graduation, he joined
> the
> > Texas Air National Guard - a so-called "champagne unit" that included
> > other sons of rich and influential Texans. He signed up for a six-year
> term.
> > There was a waiting list, as was the case at most Guard and Reserve units
> > throughout the country, because such service was generally considered a
> likely
> > way to avoid combat (5,977 reservists and 101 guardsmen died in Vietnam).
> But
> > according to one highly visible source, Bush didn't have to wait.
> >
> > Former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes told the CBS program "60 Minutes" on
> Sept.
> > 8 that he'd used his political influence to jump the young Bush ahead of
> > "hundreds" of others to get the Guard slot. He'd first said this publicly
> > after testifying in a 1999 federal court deposition, saying he'd done the
> > favor at the request of a Bush family friend. At the time Bush joined the
> Air
> > Guard, his father, George H.W. Bush, was serving his first term as a
> > congressman from Texas.
> >
> > "I would describe it as preferential treatment," Barnes, a Democrat who is
> > supporting Kerry's presidential bid, told CBS.
> >
> > For its part, the Bush campaign stands behind the president's service.
> "The
> > president's proud of his service," said Reed Dickins, a Bush campaign
> > spokesman. "The president served honorably, similarly to the thousands of
> > National Guard (members) that are serving our country today. The attacks
> on
> > this president's service have been purely political."
> >
> > It may be difficult for younger readers to understand the volatility of
> this
> > issue during the Vietnam era, particularly given the extensive involvement
> of
> > today's Guard and reserve in Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell's 1995
> > book "My American Journey" put it eloquently:
> >
> > "The policies - determining who would be drafted and who would be
> deferred,
> > who would serve and who would escape, who would die and who would live -
> were
> > an antidemocratic disgrace," Powell wrote. "I am angry that so many of the
> > sons of the powerful and well placed . managed to wangle slots in reserve
> and
> > National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class
> > discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Ameri
> cans
> > are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country."
> >
> > 'Combat ready'
> >
> > Bush graduated from flight school in 1969, was certified July 9, 1970, as
> > "combat ready" in the F-102, and began winning praise for his flight and
> > leadership skills. On his April 30, 1971, fitness report, covering 166
> > active-duty days over a period of 17 months, he earned high marks.
> >
> > "Lt. Bush is an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot," wrote his
> > commanding officer in the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron in Houston,
> Lt.
> > Col. Jerry B. Killian. Bush "performed in an outstanding manner . a
> natural
> > leader."
> >
> > But from there, Bush's performance slipped. The descent began when Bush
> > apparently did not follow an order to report for his annual flight
> physical in
> > May 1972, which got him grounded.
> >
> > The grounding was noted in one of the four documents unveiled by CBS -
> which
> > were given to the White House, which released them to the rest of the
> media. It
> > appears to be an order signed by Killian suspending Bush from flight
> status
> > "due to failure to perform to USAF/TexANG standards and failure to meet
> > annual physical examination (flight) as ordered."
> >
> > Handwriting experts hired by many media organizations as well as other
> critics
> > contend the document, and possibly all four, are forgeries. However,
> > Killian's order is confirmed by two documents that were not part of the
> CBS
> > papers. The first is a White House-released letter from the commander of
> the
> > 147th Fighter Group, Col. Bobby W. Hodges, to its Texas higher command
> dated
> > Sept. 5, 1972, with a subject line of "Suspension From Flying Status."
> >
> > The letter documents the missed flight physical and the suspension,
> > "effective 1 Aug 1972." A Sept. 29 order from the National Guard Bureau
> > further confirms the missed physical and the suspension.
> >
> > On May 26, 1972, Bush asked in writing for reassignment to an Air Reserve
> > squadron in Alabama so he could work on the U.S. Senate campaign of
> Republican
> > Winton "Red" Blount, a close friend of his influential father. That was
> > rejected because Bush was obligated to serve as a Ready Reservist until
> May 26,
> > 1974, and was ineligible for assignment to the Air Reserve. About three
> months
> > later, on Sept. 5, Bush asked to perform "equivalent duty" with the
> Alabama
> > unit from September to November. Killian approved the request a day later.
> The
> > orders went through on Sept. 15, and while Bush had missed the Sept. 9-10
> unit
> > training assembly, the document noted he could make the next two. Bush's
> > Officer Military Record shows an Oct. 1, 1973, discharge from the Texas
> Air
> > National Guard and transfer to the Alabama unit.
> >
> > Another White House-released document shows a total of 56 points Bush
> > apparently earned during this 12-month period, but it's awarded in one
> lump
> > sum rather than credited for each training period. But this document also
> > contains an error, listing Bush's status as "PLT On-Fly" - meaning he
> > was on flight status - when he had not been for a year. This, said retired
> > Army Lt. Col. Gerald A. Lechliter, who has done an in-depth analysis of
> > Bush's pay records (http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/.../lechliter.pdf),
> > makes the form's authenticity suspect.
> >
> > There's also the record of a Jan. 6, 1973, dental exam performed on Bush
> at
> > Dannelly Air National Guard Base, Ala. There's nothing that documents why
> > Bush, who reportedly returned to Texas after the election, didn't get this
> > work done closer to home.
> >
> > Bush's attendance and participation in weekend drills had been
> meticulously
> > recorded up through May 1972. But other than the points record and the
> dental
> > exam record, the year following Bush's request for reassignment to Alabama
> is
> > a blank.
> >
> > In a fitness report supplement released by the White House this year, an
> > administrative officer wrote, "Not rated for the period 1 May 72 through
> 30
> > Apr 73. Report for this period not available for administrative reasons."
> >
> > In the remarks section, Killian wrote that Bush "has not been observed at
> > this unit during the period of report. . He cleared this base on 15 May
> 1972
> > and has been performing equivalent training in a non flying status" with
> the
> > Alabama unit. Bush, however, was only authorized to be gone from September
> to
> > November.
> >
> > 'Don't remember seeing you'
> >
> > The same day Barnes spoke with CBS, a new pro-Kerry group, Texans for
> Truth,
> > announced it was launching a TV ad campaign that would attack Bush for
> failing
> > to perform his duties while temporarily assigned to the Alabama unit.
> While it
> > wasn't a new accusation, the ad featured a member of that unit who said
> > he'd never met the future president.
> >
> > "I heard George Bush get up and say, 'I served in the 187th Air National
> > Guard in Montgomery, Alabama,'" retired Lt. Col. Robert Mintz said on
> > camera. "Really? That was my unit. And I don't remember seeing you there.
> > ."
> >
> > On Sept. 5, Bush formally asked Killian for a discharge from the Texas
> unit so
> > he could attend Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Mass. Two weeks
> later,
> > Hodges approved the request and honorably discharged Bush,
> administratively
> > transferring him to Headquarters, Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver.
> >
> > Two months earlier, on June 30, Bush signed a statement promising that if
> he
> > left his Texas Ready Reserve unit, "it is my responsibility to locate and
> be
> > assigned to another Reserve Forces unit or mobilization augmentation
> position.
> > If I fail to do so, I am subject to involuntary order to active duty for
> up to
> > 24 months."
> >
> > There is no record of Bush ever having signed on with a Massachusetts
> Reserve
> > unit. In 1999, Dan Bartlett, working for the Bush campaign, told The
> Washington
> > Post that Bush had completed his six-year commitment with a Boston unit.
> That
> > didn't happen, Bartlett recently told The Boston Globe. "I must have
> > misspoke," he said. The following March, Bush was redesignated as an
> > "executive support officer." In May, he was placed on inactive status. On
> > Nov. 21 - apparently at Bush's written request, according to an undated
> > letter sent from Massachusetts and released by the White House in which he
> > requests "to discharge from the standby reserve" - he received an
> > honorable discharge "from all appointments in the United States Air
> Force."
> >
> >
> > Documents in question
> >
> > The renewed examination of the Bush record, however, has been somewhat
> obscured
> > by the explosion of media interest in the documents CBS displayed on the
> same
> > program featuring Barnes.
> >
> > In a matter of minutes, Internet "bloggers" were raising questions about
> > the authenticity of the documents, claiming that that era's typewriters
> could
> > not have produced some of the typographical elements in the memos and that
> they
> > were computer-generated forgeries. They also said that Killian's signature
> > was either forged or copied from actual documents.
> >
> > Killian's former secretary, Marian Carr Knox, 86, of Houston, has said she
> > believed the memos were fake but their content accurately reflected
> Killian's
> > opinions.
> >
> > "I know that I didn't type them," she said in an interview with CBS.
> > "However, the information in those is correct."
> >
> > As of Sept. 16, CBS continued to stand by its reporting.
> >
> > William H. McMichael covers the Navy from Hampton Roads, Va. Reach him at
> (757)
> > 223-0096 or by e-mail at bmcmichael@atpco.com
> >
> >