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Wouldn't it be abnormal for a tactical aviator to rack up less than
200 hours in jets for the period he was in service, six years from
1968 to 1973?(Associated Press

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...uard_flights_7
)

Having a hard time adding up hours today? He had some 320 plus hours in the
F-102, plus whatever hours he chalked up in the T-33, T-37, and T-38.


Drug tests for aviators were implemented in April 1972. (Salon
Magazine http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/02/06/drugs/ ) His
next exam was for October of 1972, which he refused to attend, earning
him disqualification from flight status. He left the ANG in 1973, the
threat of injury or death in Vietnam having passed with the cease-fire
signed on January 1973.

Your "source" merely refers to an old AF Reg without detailing what it said.
I'll take the words of folks like Ed, who say that drug testing was not a
normal part of the flight physical program. A little further research on
your own part will show that drug testing really did not get to be
widespread until late in the 1970's, long after Bush had left duty. And
IIRC, the only testing that was very widespread in those latter days was for
THC, which you don't get from cocaine, which is the narcotic that y'all
folks are always claiming Bush was regularly using. Even in the late
eighties, when I was on active duty, cocaine testing was the exception
because at *that* time you had to do the urinalysis within something like
72-96 hours of use in order to get a positive result (it has gotten better
since then); well aware of that because the CID guy who came to meet with me
about a suspected troopie cokehead (life as a battalion SDO was sometimes
quite interesting) was quite emphatic about having to do the test within a
very short timespan.


Does he deserve to lead America when he himself refused to hear the
call to defend her?

You have made it abundantly clear that you have no earthly idea what the
"call" is. Merely signing up for selective service and heeding the results
is one way of answering the "call", as is volunteering for service, even in
the Guard/Reserves. Bush joined the Guard after the first mobilization of
reservists was announced in early 1968, and before the second mobilization
was conducted. Between twenty and thrity thousand troops and airmen were
activated during those call ups, and an awful lot of them ended up in
Vietnam--about one hundred of them died there. If that ain't one way of
answering your "call", then I don't know what the hell you think one is.

Brooks