Bush Flew Fighter Jets During Vietnam

"WalterM140" wrote in message
...

What I can't figure is how many veterans of combat who post here are
oblivious
to the fact that both Bush presidencies have cost us hundreds of dead
service
people to no good purpose whatsoever.


Actually, there is far more than that that you cannot figure!

"WalterM140" wrote in message
...

Hard evidence.

What there is no hard evidence of is of Bush's attendance at a drill after
May,
1972, or a photo of him, or anyone who remembers him.


What there is no hard evidence of is Bush being AWOL.

"WalterM140" wrote in message
...

Of course if its discovered that any of those were self
inflicted as it is alleged that Baby Killer Kerry did...

Seriously now. Have you got even a shred of proof of that?


The following letter appeared in the USA Today "Letters" section on June
25th last, page 8A:



Criticism of Kerry's Purple Heart is just

Retired U.S. army colonel David Hackworth defends presidential
candidate John Kerry's Purple Hearts. He correctly notes that they are
awarded for a wound that necessitates treatment by a medical officer and
that is received in action with an enemy ('The meaning of a Purple Heart,"
The Forum, June 16).

I was the commanding officer to whom Kerry reported his injury on Dec.
3, 1968. I had confirmed that there was no hostile fire that night and that
Kerry had simply wounded himself with an M-79 grenade round he fired too
close. He wanted a Purple Heart, and I refused. Louis Letson, the base
physician, saw Kerry and used tweezers to remove the tiny piece of
shrapnel - about 1 centi*meter in length and 2 millimeters in di*ameter.
Letson also confirmed that the scratch was inflicted with our M-79.

We admire Col. Hackworth, but he, above all people, knows why it is
unac*ceptable to nominate yourself for an award. It compromises the basic
military principle that we survive together. To promote yourself is to
denigrate your team. I hope Col. Hackworth will rethink his characterization
of Kerry's swift-boat comrades as "grousers" passing on "secondhand bilge."
In our case, this is firsthand knowledge, and our integrity is unquestioned.

Kerry orchestrated his way out of Viet*nam and then testified, under
oath, be*fore Congress that we, his comrades, had committed horrible war
crimes. This tes*timony was a lie and slandered honor*able men. We, who were
actually there, believe he is unfit to command our sons and daughters.

Grant Hibbard, retired commander US. Navy, Gulf Breeze, Fla.

Louis Letson, M.D. Retired lieutenant commander Medical Corps, US. Navy
Reserve Scottsboro, Ala.

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...

Kerry was and is a true decorated war hero. And it is driving the neocons
nut
especially when we look at the war records of president Cheney and vice
president Bush..


Comparing the liberal's attitudes towards candidates Kerry and Clinton
illustrates the utter hypocrisy of the left.

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...

If he shipped to arrive in theater on January 8, then he left CONUS on
January 5. His DEROS would be January 5 of 1972. If he did not have a
full year of retainability, he would not have shipped for the
controlled tour.


Why not? Isn't the premise that he was given special treatment?

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...

Anything to take the focus off Bush. Any doversion or distraction. Talk
about
anything and anyone, Gore, Clinton,me, but never about Bush. It won't
work.
Vice President Bush is the issue, and the only issue.


Why isn't Kerry the issue?

Sam Byrams wrote:
All this brings up several things.

-clip-

You have to fight your tendency to view a presidential candidate
from the standpoint of aviation. Reagan was not pilot by any measure
but I would classify Kerry as farther away from Reagan (by any number
of measures) than Bush. You can't compare apples and oranges in any
meaningful way.

Bush is more of a statesman that Kerry but not much of one compared
to Teddy Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan. It's all relative.... as for me,
I'll be voting for the lesser of two evils.

Or, think of it this way. Bush is an incompetent moron; Kerry isn't.
Bush's incompetence and ego got us into a war we shouldn't be in; Kerry
didn't.

etc., etc., etc.

kontiki wrote:

Sam Byrams wrote:

All this brings up several things.


-clip-

You have to fight your tendency to view a presidential candidate
from the standpoint of aviation. Reagan was not pilot by any measure
but I would classify Kerry as farther away from Reagan (by any number
of measures) than Bush. You can't compare apples and oranges in any
meaningful way.

Bush is more of a statesman that Kerry but not much of one compared
to Teddy Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan. It's all relative.... as for me,
I'll be voting for the lesser of two evils.

"Steven P. McNicoll"

Sorry, you can only get one Purple Heart.

Plenty have several.

Have you ever seen more than one? The public thinks of the Purple Heart as the
medal, which you can get one of (well, you can buy more). After that,
additional awards can be added in the form of embellishments if the recipient
chooses to stick them on. I have one in the drawer here. It is unadorned but
represents a knifing
while chasing Pancho Villa, a bayonette wound from the scond batle of the Marne
and a great toe shot off in the Chateu Therry (spelling?) campaign, among
ohers. No it wasn't me. They may have still been using sails when I joined the
Navy, but I never knew Pershing.

The requirements for the award were ammended sometime after WWI but I don't
recall when, just that I have read them and that a nick in the skin that may
need a bandaid qualifies if the circumstances are right.

-- Charlie Springer

And you think we are going to have another presidential election in this
country???? I think that bush will stop the election and I have said the
same thing in the past prior to the news reports on how he wants to know how
to delay an election incase of a terrorist attack. If there is an election
this year I will be very surprised. They have already taken away 45% of our
arms so we could not fight an unruly government if bush dose what I think he
is going to do. But I could be wrong.



"Sam Byrams" wrote in message
om...
All this brings up several things.

One, Bush learned to fly in the military at government expense, did
not complete his assigned commitment, and flew, if I understand ,
fourteen months after UPT and has not flown as PIC or SIC since.
Neither military or elsewise. (Not counting the ride out to the boat
of late.)

Kerry learned to fly not at government expense and apparently has
done so for a number of years.

Now, mind you, I don't like Bush or Kerry as a candidate. Bush was
born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. Kerry is also
apparently something of a rich kid, married Big Ketchup, Ivy League
(yecch), and to top it off is closely associated with a family I
detest and which makes my skin crawl for many reasons (not least of
which the same reason a certain baseball player hated them for every
day of the last 36 years of his life). I can tell you right now I'm
voting third party.

But-be honest-is there any reason I should prefer Bush over Kerry
from an aviation standpoint? Bush, a nonpilot as far as I'm concerned,
has done nothing for aviation in this country. Kerry isn't likely to
either, but how much worse could he be?

The other thing in all this discussion of what balls it takes to
strap on a single engine fighter, is the growing evidence that many
people are willing to pay a lot of money for the privilege. Once
reserved for places like Mojave, the warjet deal is penetrating down
to the backward Midwest. I saw a Sabre and a Hawker Hunter poking
their tails up among the Aztecs and King Airs at the local spam can
patch this week out here. My guess is it costs roughly five hundred
bucks an hour to fly a Sabre. And the civil warjet guys are killing
themselves at a rate that would have embarrassed the Air Force during
the glory days of "Every Man A Tiger".

In and of itself flying fighters is no more heroic than riding a
chopped Harley with the Hells Angels or wreck diving with open circuit
scuba gear. It's what one does, and why, that sometimes might be
heroic. But just climbing up there-if I hit the lottery and could get
the FAA to let me I'd buy-after working my way up a little-the wildest
fighter I could. Simply because it would be-this is 2004, Marilyn's
dead, and she'd be 78 anyway- the biggest ego blast in the world to
taxi up to the ramp at the local FBO in front of all those square-ass
Gulfstream and Lear crews. I know what the statistics are, and I don't
care. I suspect Bush Jr's motives were the same-booze, pussy and
kerosene!












Cub Driver wrote in message
. ..
I believe that is the first time I have heard of the F-102 as a "safe
aircraft"! Were they really?

As Ed Rasimus has said: "Every time you kick the tires and light the
fire in a single-engine, single-seat Century Series jet, it can kill
you--all by itself without help from an enemy."
www.warbirdforum.com/bushf102.htm