"Be Kind" wrote in message
om...
Go to Original
www.truthout.org
www.rememberjohn.com
Bush's Missing Year
By Eric Boehlert
Salon.com

Thursday 05 February 2004

In 1972, George W. Bush dropped out of his National Guard
service and
later lied about it. With the media finally paying
attention, will he
now come clean?
In 1972, George W. Bush simply walked away from his
pilot duties
in the Texas Air National Guard. He skipped required
weekend drill
sessions for many months, probably for more than a year,
and did not
take a mandatory annual physical exam, which resulted in
his being
grounded. Nonetheless, Bush, the son of a well-connected
Texas
congressman, received an honorable discharge.

If an Air National guardsman today vanished for a
year, military
attorneys say that guardsman would be transferred to
active duty or,
more likely, kicked out of the service, probably with a
less-than-honorable discharge. They suggest the penalty
would be
especially swift if the absent-without-leave guardsman
were a fully
trained pilot, as Bush was.

Bush's National Guard record, long ignored by the
media, has
surfaced with a vengeance. If the topic continues to rage,
and if the
media presses him, Bush may finally be forced to release
his full
military records, which could reveal the truth. By
refusing to make
all those records public, Bush has until now broken with a
long-standing tradition of U.S. presidential candidates.

I served in the Marines from 1961 to 1966. I volunteered for
Vietnam in 1964 while stationed in Japan with the 1st Marine
Airwing. We had 3 chopper squadrons down in Danang, RSV
before there were any "ground troops" on the ground. I also
served in the Dominican Republic Crisis in 1965.

I was at one time a card carrying member of the John Birch
Society so I have some well established conservative
credentials!

I was a staunch HAWK up through 1968 when I started to
question how the Vietnam War was being handled. We were
destoying the country to save it while we were destroying
our freedoms at home just to support Nixon and Kissinger's
egos!

We were doing a holding action instead of fighting to win
and it was costing us billions while destroying our youths.
I became opposed to the war because it was getting nowhere
and eventually became active in the Vietnam Veterans Against
the War.

Absence Without Leave during a time of war was a Courts
Martial offense that could have led to the death penalty!

I knew of quite a few Reservists and National Guardsmen who
were sent on Active Duty - usually directly to Vietnam for
failing to attend meetings. They usually had to serve their
remaining enlistments on Active Duty. There were also a
number of officers who were busted to the Enlisted Ranks and
then sent to Vietnam.

We the taxpayers spent a million dollars to send a not so
bright draft dodging poor little rich kid to flight school
to learn to fly an early 50's vintage interceptor designed
to shoot down Russian prop job bombers. This was at a time
when the Marines were so hard pressed for pilots that they
had to send men to Army and Air Force Flight Schools.

About the only bombers little Georgie saw were the ones he
rolled himself while protecting his cocaine supply routes up
the Rio Grande!

All of the weenie dicked Chicken Hawks point to Bill Clinton
as a draft dodger, what about all of the members of Bush's
entourage: Cheney for example, "I had more important things
to do" and so on.

On the eve of the 2000 election, 3 Senators released the
strait scoop on W's war record but their words fell on deaf
ears.

Georgie where were you? What did you know? We know that
Bill didn't inhale but were you a drunk and a coke head? You
didn't like cocaine, you just liked the way it smelled???

BTW, where's you're pre 1995 driving records.