bush rules!

"Fred the Red Shirt" wrote in message
om...

Were those the only Guardsmen deployed in Vietnam.


No. The Convair F-102 was the interceptor of choice in the earlier part of
direct US military operations in Vietnam. In mid-1968, the USAF was
running short of experienced F-102 drivers. Not surprising, since by that
time the ANG had been the primary operator of that aircraft for some years.
Guard pilots were sought to volunteer for 90 or 180 day tours to fill out
the F-102 squadrons. That program was called Palace Alert.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn of other Guard involvement in Vietnam, but
that's all I'm aware of.



IF so, T\that would mean that less than 5% of the troops who
served the US in Vietnam were activated National Guard. I
(also) don't know how many Guardsnmen there were in the US
but I will be careful in the future to say that _almost_
no guardsmen were deployed in Vietnam.


Yup. But that was a policy decision made by President Johnson. The joint
chiefs wanted to employ the Guard and ANG as early as 1964. LBJ could have
changed his policy at any time, and by March 1968 it was known that someone
other than Johnson would be president in January 1969. Perhaps someone that
didn't agree with Johnson's policy.



Then my guess would be wrong, which is a chronic problem with
guessing. Can you name the instructor, or recall where you heard/read
that?


His name was Maurice H. Udell.

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/pu...cle_5025.shtml

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message hlink.net...
"Fred the Red Shirt" wrote in message
om...

Consider, if you will:

1) Being AWOL is a crime. Nothing you allege about Clinton,
with the possible exception of burning his draft card, was
or is a crime and I'm doubtful that a law prohibiting one
from burning one's own draft card would pass Constitutional
muster.


Hell, the draft didn't pass Constitutional muster!

Yes it did. Though my guess is you're no more than half serious:

Have you ever heard the saying that the First Amendment does not
protect a man's right shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater? There
are variations on that, but the original, or at least the most
famous appears in the majority decision written by Chief Justice
of the USSC, Oliver Wendel Holmes in a ruling which upheld the
treason conviction of man who agued that Conscription was
unconstitutional, and advocated draft resistance, even after
the draft was ruled to be not unconstitutional by the USSC.

Inasmuch as the best basis for holding the draft to be unconstitutional
is the 13th amendment, which was passed during the Reconstruction
of a Union that had survived in no small measure due to the
institution of conscription, it seems likely that the ruling was
consistent with the original intent of the Constitution and its
amendments, regardless of the specifics of the wording. The
draft is indisputedly involuntary and I daresay that few who
have been drafted would argue that the subsequent experience
is anything other than servitude. However the term, 'involuntary
servitude' had been used as a euphemism for slavery for some
time before the Civil War and was never specifically applied to
military service by draftees so it seems the USSC was on solid
ground.

--

FF

"George Z. Bush" wrote in message
...

The following was extracted from http://www.greaterthings.com

"At this point in the Vietnam War, the US Air Force desperately needed
additional F-102 pilots to fly the dangerous reconnaissance missions so
important to the fate of American troops on the ground. With only a small
amount of solo flying experience, Bush applied for a voluntary three
month Vietnam tour, perhaps counting on preferential treatment once
again to overcome his lack of readiness, or perhaps safe in the
knowledge that his request would certainly be rejected."


Right. They needed F-102 pilots to fly reconnaissance missions. I would
have thought RF-101 or RF-4 or even RF-84 pilots would have been preferable
to F-102 pilots for reconnaissance missions. Silly me.



I believe there were some National Guard troops who served in VN.
Cong. Gephardt (D-Mo), for one, was in the Missouri ANG and
served in VN.


What's your source for that? I can find no mention of Vietnam service in
any of Gephardt's online biographies. If he was truly a Vietnam veteran I'd
expect it would be trumpeted loudly.

Gephardt served in the Air National Guard from 1965 to 1971 . He was a legal
affairs officer with the 131st Combat Support Squadron based in St. Louis.
The 131st CSG was part of the 131st Tactical Fighter Wing, as was the 110th
Tactical Fighter Squadron, equipped with F-100s. Four ANG F-100 squadrons
deployed to Vietnam in 1968 for 11 month combat tours, but the 110th TFS was
not one of them. It was not called to federal service at any time during
Gephardt's tour.





That may be true, but he undoubtedly was the only President who
lied about it.


Lied about what?

"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message ...
...
Bush was not guilty of being AWOL. In the Guard there are provisions for
individuals to perform "split training" and "equivalent training"
assemblies, before or after the scheduled drills, when they can't reasonably
attend the scheduled events. Based upon the NYT investiagtion results, that
is what GWB did--he was not the first, and he will not be the last, to
perform a portion of his duty in such a fashion.

I've never seen copies of the documents allegedly obtained by the
NYT. Have they been posted online?

Hopefully this will eventually settle the matter:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...litary_records

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Feb9.html

This document has been cited as evidence of poor attendence, but it
certainly is not clear to me.

http://users.cis.net/coldfeet/doc23.gif


... or (b) they volunteered for
active duty (just as Bush had volunteered for Palace Alert duty, which could
have found him serving in SEA had he been accepted).

Somewhere I have seen a copy of a document in which GWB had expressed
a preference to not be assigned ot overseas duty. But I wasn't able
to find it just now.

This is the first that I heard of 'Palace ALert Duty' or that Bush
had volunteered for duty outside of the US. Can you offer some
evidence in support of that, explain 'Palace Alert Duty'?

Was PAD related to the SAC in any way?




... 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.

It seems to me that if the Marines had to send pilots to the
Army and AF for training then the Marines must have had a SURPLUS
of pilots (e.g. too many to for the USMC to train on its own)
rather than being hard pressed for them.


Hmmm...one wonders why those same archaic fighters were sent to Thailand and
Vietnam throughout the major part of the war, and as we have already seen in
another thread, why a couple of them were lost in combat operations.


If indeed they were archaic that does help to explain why some
were lost in combat, does it not?

--

FF

Fred the Red Shirt wrote:
"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
...

(Snip)

... 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.

It seems to me that if the Marines had to send pilots to the
Army and AF for training then the Marines must have had a SURPLUS
of pilots (e.g. too many to for the USMC to train on its own)
rather than being hard pressed for them.

The last time I looked, the USMC did NOT train its pilots. They received their
training from the Navy; I never heard of Marines being trained by either the
Army or the AF.

George Z.


Hmmm...one wonders why those same archaic fighters were sent to Thailand and
Vietnam throughout the major part of the war, and as we have already seen in
another thread, why a couple of them were lost in combat operations.


If indeed they were archaic that does help to explain why some
were lost in combat, does it not?

"Fred the Red Shirt" wrote in message
om...
"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
...
...
Bush was not guilty of being AWOL. In the Guard there are provisions for
individuals to perform "split training" and "equivalent training"
assemblies, before or after the scheduled drills, when they can't
reasonably
attend the scheduled events. Based upon the NYT investiagtion results,
that
is what GWB did--he was not the first, and he will not be the last, to
perform a portion of his duty in such a fashion.

I've never seen copies of the documents allegedly obtained by the
NYT. Have they been posted online?

Not to my knowledge. But another poster has included a rather detailed
analysis of Bush's records that does seem to support the contention that he
attended sufficient days of training each year.


Hopefully this will eventually settle the matter:


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...litary_records

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Feb9.html

Looks like the former kind of makes the latter immaterial, and that he did
perform enough required duty to receive credit for "good" years.


This document has been cited as evidence of poor attendence, but it
certainly is not clear to me.

http://users.cis.net/coldfeet/doc23.gif

Hard to read it, but it appears to be nothing more than an acknowledgement
statement--the undersigned acknowledges he has been informed that he has to
perform IAW whatever regfulation and faces potential penalties if he does
not do so. Not an uncommon kind of transaction in the military.



... or (b) they volunteered for
active duty (just as Bush had volunteered for Palace Alert duty, which
could
have found him serving in SEA had he been accepted).

Somewhere I have seen a copy of a document in which GWB had expressed
a preference to not be assigned ot overseas duty. But I wasn't able
to find it just now.

That refers to the statement he signed upon initially entering the service.
As has been pointed out elsewhere by others, signing such a statement upon
service entry, for a guy going into a Guard unit, is not out of line. He had
enlisted into a vacancy in a particular unit, not into the Air
Force-as-a-whole as active duty personnel do. As someone else has already
mentioned regarding this, it is likely that he was told something to the
effect, "Nah, you are joining this ANG unit, so don't check the "am willing"
block for overseas service".


This is the first that I heard of 'Palace ALert Duty' or that Bush
had volunteered for duty outside of the US. Can you offer some
evidence in support of that, explain 'Palace Alert Duty'?

Palace Alert was a program where ANG F-102 pilots volunteered for extended
active duty periods (six months, IIRC) flying F-102's in active component
squadrons. The USAF was getting short of F-102 pilots in the later sixties,
so the ANG was a source for fleshing out that requirment. Palace Alert could
find the ANG volunteer serving at any number of F-102 bases (see:
www.philippecolin.net/Gmb.html ), including those in SEA. ISTR Bush
mentioned in his autobiography that he and a buddy signed up for the program
but were eventually told they lacked the experience that was required. Some
folks (one rather loud mouthed yet poorly informed old coot in this NG being
among the worst) claim that he nefariously *knew* he would not be qualified
for the program and dreamed this up as a way of being able to say he
volunteered for overseas duty when he knew it would not happen. But in fact
the determination of how much experience was required would have been based
upon how many pilots had volunteered at that point, and how many slots the
ANG was tasked to fill--here is an excerpt concerning an ANG second
lieutenant F-102 pilot who found himself serving in Iceland with the 57th
FIS while the bulk of the squadron was undergoing transition to the F-4:

"...what is believed to be the last F-102 intercept was made by 2nd Lt.
Grant E. Bollen. Lt. Bollen was an ANG pilot that volunteered along with
four other ANG pilots to go on an open ended TDY to Iceland to replace
"Deuce drivers" that were in the USA, converting to the F-4. His arrival
caused some consternation in Keflavik, because 2nd lieutenants were not to
be posted to Iceland. He had 500 hours in the 102, but he was not allowed to
stand alert at first and states that "I had to be escorted by a major
everywhere I went".

www.verslo.is/baldur/57th_fis/57th.htm


Was PAD related to the SAC in any way?

No, it was an ADC (Air Defense Command) mission.



... 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.

It seems to me that if the Marines had to send pilots to the
Army and AF for training then the Marines must have had a SURPLUS
of pilots (e.g. too many to for the USMC to train on its own)
rather than being hard pressed for them.

I did not write that. Yeah, you'd have to wonder what the problem with their
own pipeline was, or what other considerations were taken into account
(i.e., this was arounf the time the USMC started to get the UH-1N, so
piggybacking Huey training on the Army's UH-1 training program would have
made some sense). Either way, the issue is meaningless to the GWB situation.



Hmmm...one wonders why those same archaic fighters were sent to Thailand
and
Vietnam throughout the major part of the war, and as we have already
seen in
another thread, why a couple of them were lost in combat operations.


If indeed they were archaic that does help to explain why some
were lost in combat, does it not?

Not really. The F-102 was never really intended to be anything other than a
point defense interceptor do defend against enemy bomber attacks. It did not
have the capability of carrying the best short range AAM we had
(Sidewinder), and it was rather pitiful in the ground attack role (which
some did actually perform in Vietnam). Nor was it designed to really mix it
up with enemy fighters. Baugher's site indicates that two were lost to AAA,
and one to a Mig-21. Another fifteen were operational losses not related to
combat (can't recall if that includes those destroyed in saper/rocket
attacks on their bases). It continued on in active service with the ANG
until the 74-76 timeframe, when the last were withdrawn from service; the
Turks and Greeks flew them for a few more years, with one rumored encounter
between a couple of Turkish F-102's and Greek F-5's (IIRC) in 1974.

Brooks


--

FF

"Fred the Red Shirt" wrote in
message
om...
"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
...
snip

... 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.

It seems to me that if the Marines had to send pilots to
the
Army and AF for training then the Marines must have had a
SURPLUS
of pilots (e.g. too many to for the USMC to train on its
own)
rather than being hard pressed for them.

DOH! we were loosing them at an extremely high rate. The
life expectancy for USMC Huey crews was about 3 months! I
have a quote from a current Marine fighter pilot "I'm a
riffleman and I fly a jet fighter!" The Marines developed
the concept of close air support in "banana Wars' of the
late 20's and early 30's!

Hmmm...one wonders why those same archaic fighters were
sent to Thailand and
Vietnam throughout the major part of the war, and as we
have already seen in
another thread, why a couple of them were lost in combat
operations.


If indeed they were archaic that does help to explain why
some
were lost in combat, does it not?

They flew anything that they could get off of the ground
down at the boneyard at Davis-Monthan Airbase outside of
Tucson, AZ.

We had 2 R4Ds at Danang in 1964-65 (C47 also known as DC3).
The seats were removed and they were used to ferry ARVN
troops and their families and all of their pigs and chickens
around. They were full of patches from bullet holes.

The Air Force flew WWII era Douglas A26/B26 Invaders up
until Feb 1964. They carried 6,000 bomb loads and had up to
16 .50 Cal MGs. Then there were the B57 Canberras which the
Aussies also flew.

The mainstay of the USAF close air support effort were the
old ex Navy/USMC propjob AD-6 and AD-7 Skyraiders renamed
A-1E through A-1J. The Marines retired the last Skyraider
squadron out of NAS Memphis in the early 60's. The Navy
still flew them off of carriers in the Tonkin Gulf until
late 1965???

And of course, the spooks had a slew of C-47 and C-23 cargo
haulers.
--
Chas. (Drop spamski to E-mail
me)

"Fred the Red Shirt" wrote in
message
om...
"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
...
snip

... 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.

It seems to me that if the Marines had to send pilots to
the
Army and AF for training then the Marines must have had a
SURPLUS
of pilots (e.g. too many to for the USMC to train on its
own)
rather than being hard pressed for them.

DOH! we were loosing them at an extremely high rate. The
life expectancy for USMC Huey crews was about 3 months! I
have a quote from a current Marine fighter pilot "I'm a
rifleman and I fly a jet fighter!" The Marines developed
the concept of close air support in "banana Wars' of the
late 20's and early 30's!

Hmmm...one wonders why those same archaic fighters were
sent to Thailand and
Vietnam throughout the major part of the war, and as we
have already seen in
another thread, why a couple of them were lost in combat
operations.


If indeed they were archaic that does help to explain why
some
were lost in combat, does it not?

They flew anything that they could get off of the ground
down at the boneyard at Davis-Monthan Airbase outside of
Tucson, AZ.

We had 2 R4Ds at Danang in 1964-65 (C47 also known as DC3).
The seats were removed and they were used to ferry ARVN
troops and their families and all of their pigs and chickens
around. They were full of patches from bullet holes.

The Air Force flew WWII era Douglas A26/B26 Invaders up
until Feb 1964. They carried 6,000 bomb loads and had up to
16 .50 Cal MGs. Then there were the B57 Canberras which the
Aussies also flew.

The mainstay of the USAF close air support effort were the
old ex Navy/USMC propjob AD-6 and AD-7 Skyraiders renamed
A-1E through A-1J. The Marines retired the last Skyraider
squadron out of NAS Memphis in the early 60's. The Navy
still flew them off of carriers in the Tonkin Gulf until
late 1965???

And of course, the spooks had a slew of C-47 and C-23 cargo
haulers.
--
Chas. (Drop spamski to E-mail
me)

"Fred the Red Shirt" wrote in
message
om...
"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
...
snip

... 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.

It seems to me that if the Marines had to send pilots to
the
Army and AF for training then the Marines must have had a
SURPLUS
of pilots (e.g. too many to for the USMC to train on its
own)
rather than being hard pressed for them.

DOH! we were loosing them at an extremely high rate. The
life expectancy for USMC Huey crews was about 3 months! I
have a quote from a current Marine fighter pilot "I'm a
riffleman and I fly a jet fighter!" The Marines develoved
the concept of close air support in "bannana Wars' of the
late 20's and early 30's!

Hmmm...one wonders why those same archaic fighters were
sent to Thailand and
Vietnam throughout the major part of the war, and as we
have already seen in
another thread, why a couple of them were lost in combat
operations.


If indeed they were archaic that does help to explain why
some
were lost in combat, does it not?

They flew anything that they could get off of the ground
down at the boneyard at Davis-Monthan Airbase outside of
Tucson, AZ.

We had 2 R4Ds at Danang in 1964-65 (C47 also known as DC3).
The seats were removed and they were used to ferry ARVN
troops and their families and all of their pigs and chickens
around. They were full of patches from bullet holes.

The Air Force flew WWII era Douglas A26/B26 Invaders up
until Feb 1964. They carried 6,000 bomb loads and had up to
16 .50 Cal MGs. Then there were the B57 Canberras which the
Aussies also flew.

The mainstay of the USAF close air support effort were the
old ex Navy/USMC propjob AD-6 and AD-7 Skyraiders renamed
A-1E through A-1J. The Marines retired the last Skyraider
squadron out of NAS Memphis in the early 60's. The Navy
still flew them off of carriers in the Tonkin Gulf until
late 1965???

And of course, the spooks had a slew of C-47 and C-23 cargo
haulers.
--
Chas. (Drop spamski to E-mail
me)

"* * Chas" wrote in message
om...

We had 2 R4Ds at Danang in 1964-65 (C47 also known as DC3).


There were no R4Ds in 1964-65, and it was C-47 and DC-3.



The Air Force flew WWII era Douglas A26/B26 Invaders up
until Feb 1964. They carried 6,000 bomb loads and had up to
16 .50 Cal MGs. Then there were the B57 Canberras which the
Aussies also flew.


It's A-26, B-26, and B-57, and the WWII era B-26 was out of the inventory
shortly after WWII ended.



And of course, the spooks had a slew of C-47 and C-23 cargo
haulers.


C-123.