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February 11, 2004

Bush's ANG Service

The Washington Time's printed an excellent letter written by one of George Bush's squadron mates, Col. William Campenni (retired)

There was one big exception to this abusive use of the Guard to avoid the draft, and that was for those who wanted to fly, as pilots or crew members. Because of the training required, signing up for this duty meant up to 2½ years of active duty for training alone, plus a high probability of mobilization. A fighter-pilot candidate selected by the Guard (such as Lt. Bush and me) would be spending the next two years on active duty going through basic training (six weeks), flight training (one year), survival training (two weeks) and combat crew training for his aircraft (six to nine months), followed by local checkout (up to three more months) before he was even deemed combat-ready. Because the draft was just two years, you sure weren't getting out of duty being an Air Guard pilot. If the unit to which you were going back was an F-100, you were mobilized for Vietnam. Avoiding service? Yeah, tell that to those guys.

The idea that a good way to avoid danger is by becoming a fighter pilot is absolutely assinine. Of all the jobs in the Air Force that can keep you out of harm's way (aside from a heavy air strike by the Soviets), fighter pilot is not one of them.

The Bush critics do not comprehend the dangers of fighter aviation at any time or place, in Vietnam or at home, when they say other such pilots were risking their lives or even dying while Lt. Bush was in Texas. Our Texas ANG unit lost several planes right there in Houston during Lt. Bush's tenure, with fatalities. Just strapping on one of those obsolescing F-102s was risking one's life.

Statistically flying the number of hours that Bush did in an F-100 series fighter has about a 2% death rate, the same as going to Vietnam, even if you didn't get deployed over there for combat. And we were still at the height of the cold war, staring at Bear bombers, Migs, and other threats. Nobody becomes a combat pilot while basking in the delusional certainty that a major war won't happen. The transparent claims of the Democrats completely ignores the fact that a random 2% of fighter pilots would die strapped to their hurling metal suicide machines, built by the lowest bidder on a government contract where even the aeronautical engineers were struggling and in way over their heads.

The squadron mate shoots down some of the other Democrat claims.

First, there is no instance of Lt. Bush disobeying lawful orders in reporting for a physical, as none would be given. Pilots are scheduled for their annual flight physicals in their birth month during that month's weekend drill assembly — the only time the clinic is open. In the Reserves, it is not uncommon to miss this deadline by a month or so for a variety of reasons: The clinic is closed that month for special training; the individual is out of town on civilian business; etc.

The Democrats are so daft that they can't even make claims that are physically possible, as when they say Bush posed with a plastic turkey in Baghdad, despite the fact that plastic turkeys don't physically exist on this planet. Nobody makes them. Nobody sells them. You can't buy them.

If so, the pilot is grounded temporarily until he completes the physical. Also, the formal drug testing program was not instituted by the Air Force until the 1980s and is done randomly by lot, not as a special part of a flight physical, when one easily could abstain from drug use because of its date certain. Blood work is done, but to ensure a healthy pilot, not confront a drug user.

So he couldn't have been skipping a drug test if there weren't any drug tests to skip, now could he?

Second, there was no such thing as a "disciplinary unit in Colorado" to which Lt. Bush had been ordered. The Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver is a repository of the paperwork for those no longer assigned to a specific unit, such as retirees and transferees. Mine is there now, so I guess I'm "being disciplined." These "disciplinary units" just don't exist.

Just because it doesn't exist doesn't mean it's not as real as a plastic turkey.

Finally, the Kerrys, Moores and McAuliffes are casting a terrible slander on those who served in the Guard, then and now. My Guard career parallels Lt. Bush's, except that I stayed on for 33 years. As a guardsman, I even got to serve in two campaigns. In the Cold War, the air defense of the United States was borne primarily by the Air National Guard, by such people as Lt. Bush and me and a lot of others. Six of those with whom I served in those years never made their 30th birthdays because they died in crashes flying air-defense missions.

But John Kerry had two boo-boos and an ouchie, so there! The Democrats don't have a problem with insulting and spitting on anyone who's worn the uniform, and they'll nominate John Kerry because he's the Spitter in Chief, not because of his actual service. He's one of the people most responsible for the lies and distortions that our Vietnam veterans were insane psychopathic misfits, when in fact they've been shown to be mentally healthier, more well adjusted, and more successful than non-veterans. Many of the people John Kerry had testify with him weren't even real veterans, but bums and hippies out to scam the VA system with a fake DD-214 and a politically acceptable excuse to be a drunken loser.

While most of America was sleeping and Mr. Kerry was playing antiwar games with Hanoi Jane Fonda, we were answering 3 a.m. scrambles for who knows what inbound threat over the Canadian subarctic, the cold North Atlantic and the shark-filled Gulf of Mexico. We were the pathfinders in showing that the Guard and Reserves could become reliable members of the first team in the total force, so proudly evidenced today in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Zing... Kerry is vermin, and he's also toast. If nothing else, maybe this campaign can finally set straight the record on Vietnam servicemen, and the fact that Kerry besmirched them all, tarring them with a brush that would last for decades.

February 11, 2004 in Politics | Permalink

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