Would SBVFT consider Bush 'fit for command'?

That's interesting. My impression up to now has been that he used the Vietnam thread in his speeches as a defensive weapon against Bush's "operation flight suit"; that the originally intended message was: "See -- just because you put on a flight suit, strut around in it on an aircraft carrier, let soldiers celebrate your 'mission accomplished', and call yourself a 'war president', that doesn't make you a credible commander in chief. In reality, you're still just a draft dodger who never even bothered to finish his draft-dodging." So far I think that's fair game, but the thread then got out of hand (this can happen in real life too...) and became this huge big deal that crowds out way too much debate about the issues that matter. At least that was my impression up to now.

This is the first time I hear that the Vietnam story played a big role in Kerry's pre-presidential campaign rhetoric too. If your story about his rhetoric is true, this would lower my opinion of Kerry enough to make me prefer, say, George Bush Sr. over him, though certainly not George Bush Jr. As it happens, I did some surfing on the Doonesbury site a few hours ago, and it turns out that Gary Trudeau painted a portrait of Kerry's rhetoric back in 1971. In fairness, I have to concede that Gary Trudeau's 1971 account of Kerry's activism does look more consistent with your side of the story than with mine. Then again, Trudeau's contemporary account of Kerry's opponents isn't very favorable either. But I am now open to the possibility that non-fanatic veterans may indeed have a legitimate axe to grind with Kerry's Vietnam rhetoric.

Now, if only we had some contemporary Doonesbury strips of George Bush Jr. to compare the Kerry strips with ...

The group of ex Navy guys got seriously mobilized against John Kerry in the early '80s, when as a sitting Senator, he lobbied then Secretary of the Navy John Lehman to award him the Silver star (more than 10 years after the fact !) for service during his 13 week tour in swift boats. He had already left bitter memories of his grandstanding before the Senate Committee in 1970 on behalf of a "veterans" group that was later found to be heavily populated with charlatans and radicals. He testified to widespread atrocities and when reminded that his failure as an officer to report such things - if he indeed observed them - was itself a crime, he quickly, but quietly affirmed that he had never seen any such events. There was widespread anger and contempt for him among veterans of Swift Boats and among the former POWs. Everyone I knew was aware of his self-promotion and affection for medals. Kerry has rather consistently exploited this synthetic ?'war hero' status throughout his political career. That he was surprised by what emerged suggests that he had finally become the chief victim of his own propoganda. These are serious character flaws.

George Bush earned the wings of an Air Force Pilot during his service in the Air Guard: he qualified in fighters - F-102s. The guys on the Lincoln were pleased and honored to see him fly aboard - they saw it as a tribute to themselves. This stuff is not all that unusual - I had many occasions to fly visiting VIPs in the back seat of fighters off various carriers during my time on them - the list included a Spanish General (who crossed himself as we waited for the cat shot), a couple of Royal Navy Types and a FRG Air Force general who had flown FW 190s and ME 262s during WWII. (he was very cool !). Clearly Bush's political opponents could not forgive him for the swagger, however after eight years of Bill Clinton it was a welcome and refreshing change to the guys on the ship.

Not really falsehoods. After your post I took the trouble to read his testimony and do some research on the VVAW group for which he was the appointed spokesman. It is true that early in his testimony he noted that he was reporting the harvest of an earlier meeting in Detroit of the VVAW at which the stories which he was reporting were exchanged. However the clear unambiguous statements he offered affirming that rather awful atrocities were the rule, not the exception - widespread and ubiquitous - were contradicted by his own experience in the war. His faiure to affirm that in my book constitutes a serious deceprion - not to mention slander of those with whom he served.

Kerry's surprise at the furor that has emerged is itself interesting. He has long been the subject of contempt and derision by his former squadronmates and by the various POW organizations. Evidently he became the chief cousumer of his own self-serving propoganda. That alonee and the serious misjudgement it entails raises serious questions about his character.

Bush joined the Air Guard, completed Air Force flight training and qualified in F-102s. He made no additional claims about his service,. The drill records about which you and others are trying to raise a fuss are no big deal. That the records might have been lost is just as believable as the assumption that he missed a drill. Generally flight billets in the Air Guard were highly prized - there were always other guys glad to take up any such opportunity. Recalls for such missed drills (if that was the case) just didn't occur.

Perhaps studying the history and aspects of the Vietnam war, the myriad dynamics such as those who were for the war in the beginning but then turned harshly against it, should be studied more than referring to one man and his opinion 30 years ago who is now running for President.

I'm sure MANY Vietnam vets were as angry at the war itself as they were angry at those who would criticize it.

The fact is, atrocities DID happen, whether they be big or small. And there are Vietnam vets who are angry at Kerry, but have not denied the fact that atrocities DID occur. It is MUCH more complicated than EITHER side has indicated. Many people HATE Kerry for this. But he was telling the TRUTH. Perhaps the neoconservatives would be happy with the man they have now who lies constantly to them on a daily basis in order to win political points.

But it would also be interesting to study the many "opinions" of George W. Bush back then so we can compare the differences. By all personal accounts, Dumbya was a cokehead, alcoholic, who's fraternity style socializing and straight "C" intellect didn't help him much unless Daddy was around to back him up. See, if Bush could actually remember and articulate his experiences in the National Guard, i.e., naming guys he hung out with during his "questionable" time in Alabama, then this WOULD be no fuss at all. So either he's too brain damage to remember, or he was AWOL and won't fess up as to why.

And quite frankly, as the swifties have conjured up every minute detail of bull to smear Kerry, it is what we CANNOT find in Bush's NG records that indicates how full of Bull Dumbya is.

1. George W. Bush DID NOT complete his ANG duty. http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000625682

2. George W. Bush lied about it.

3. George W. Bush was a DESERTER (AWOL being missing for 30 days, Deserter being more than 30 days)

4. George W. Bush was PAID, according to his military records, for drills that were not performed. Would that be THEFT?

5. George W. Bush wears a medal in his military photo that was earned by his unit BEFORE he arrived there, and therefore, that he did not earn and did not have permission to wear.



Now, is that not worse than coming back from Vietnam and letting people know what was going on? Do you feel the same about the person that "outed" the Abu Graib prison abuse? Do you expect soldiers serving in Iraq today to be angry enough 35 years from now to stop the person that passed on the prison abuse CD from running for president?

I honestly don't know what to say. If someone doesn't see the difference between missing drills or not showing up for a physical and the impact of Kerry's words on men who were held prisoner and mistreated, then so be it.

I've read some of what these POWs have said and what they had to endure because of Kerry. I cannot imagine Kerry wasn't aware of this impact.

Because of the pain he caused them, many of them just cannot forget. I don't blame them.

'Bush and I were lieutenants'
(From the Washington Times)
    
George Bush and I were lieutenants and pilots in the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron (FIS), Texas Air National Guard (ANG) from 1970 to 1971. We had the same flight and squadron commanders (Maj. William Harris and Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, both now deceased). While we were not part of the same social circle outside the base, we were in the same fraternity of fighter pilots, and proudly wore the same squadron patch.
    
It is quite frustrating to hear the daily cacophony from the left and Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, et al., about Lt. Bush escaping his military responsibilities by hiding in the Texas ANG. In the Air Guard during the Vietnam War, you were always subject to call-up, as many Air National Guardsmen are finding out today. If the 111th FIS and Lt. Bush did not go to Vietnam, blame President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, not lowly Lt. Bush. They deliberately avoided use of the Guard and Reserves for domestic political calculations, knowing that a draftee only stirred up the concerns of one family, while a call-up got a whole community's attention.
    
The mission of the 147th Fighter Group and its subordinate 111th FIS, Texas ANG, and the airplane it possessed, the F-102, was air defense. It was focused on defending the continental United States from Soviet nuclear bombers. The F-102 could not drop bombs and would have been useless in Vietnam. A pilot program using ANG volunteer pilots in F-102s (called Palace Alert) was scrapped quickly after the airplane proved to be unsuitable to the war effort. Ironically, Lt. Bush did inquire about this program but was advised by an ANG supervisor (Maj. Maurice Udell, retired) that he did not have the desired experience (500 hours) at the time and that the program was winding down and not accepting more volunteers.
    
If you check the 111th FIS records of 1970-72 and any other ANG squadron, you will find other pilots excused for career obligations and conflicts. The Bush excusal in 1972 was further facilitated by a change in the unit's mission, from an operational fighter squadron to a training squadron with a new airplane, the F-101, which required that more pilots be available for full-time instructor duty rather than part-time traditional reservists with outside employment.
    
The winding down of the Vietnam War in 1971 provided a flood of exiting active-duty pilots for these instructor jobs, making part-timers like Lt. Bush and me somewhat superfluous. There was a huge glut of pilots in the Air Force in 1972, and with no cockpits available to put them in, many were shoved into nonflying desk jobs. Any pilot could have left the Air Force or the Air Guard with ease after 1972 before his commitment was up because there just wasn't room for all of them anymore.
    
Sadly, few of today's partisan pundits know anything about the environment of service in the Reserves in the 1970s. The image of a reservist at that time is of one who joined, went off for six months' basic training, then came back and drilled weekly or monthly at home, with two weeks of "summer camp." With the knowledge that Mr. Johnson and Mr. McNamara were not going to call out the Reserves, it did become a place of refuge for many wanting to avoid Vietnam.
    
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 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.
    
Critics such as Mr. Kerry (who served in Vietnam, you know), Terry McAuliffe and Michael Moore (neither of whom served anywhere) say Lt. Bush abandoned his assignment as a jet fighter pilot without explanation or authorization and was AWOL from the Alabama Air Guard.
    
Well, as for abandoning his assignment, this is untrue. Lt. Bush was excused for a period to take employment in Florida for a congressman and later in Alabama for a Senate campaign.
    
Excusals for employment were common then and are now in the Air Guard, as pilots frequently are in career transitions, and most commanders (as I later was) are flexible in letting their charges take care of career affairs until they return or transfer to another unit near their new employment. Sometimes they will transfer temporarily to another unit to keep them on the active list until they can return home. The receiving unit often has little use for a transitory member, especially in a high-skills category like a pilot, because those slots usually are filled and, if not filled, would require extensive conversion training of up to six months, an unlikely option for a temporary hire.
    
As a commander, I would put such "visitors" in some minor administrative post until they went back home. There even were a few instances when I was unaware that they were on my roster because the paperwork often lagged. Today, I can't even recall their names. If a Lt. Bush came into my unit to "pull drills" for a couple of months, I wouldn't be too involved with him because I would have a lot more important things on my table keeping the unit combat ready.
    
Another frequent charge is that, as a member of the Texas ANG, Lt. Bush twice ignored or disobeyed lawful orders, first by refusing to report for a required physical in the year when drug testing first became part of the exam, and second by failing to report for duty at the disciplinary unit in Colorado to which he had been ordered. Well, here are the facts:
    
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.
    
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.
    
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. Any discipline, if required, is handled within the local squadron, group or wing, administratively or judicially. Had there been such an infraction or court-martial action, there would be a record and a reflection in Lt. Bush's performance review and personnel folder. None exists, as was confirmed in The Washington Post in 2000.
    
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.
    
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.
    
It didn't happen by accident. It happened because back at the nadir of Guard fortunes in the early '70s, a lot of volunteer guardsman showed they were ready and able to accept the responsibilities of soldier and citizen ?- then and now. Lt. Bush was a kid whose congressman father encouraged him to serve in the Air National Guard. We served proudly in the Guard. Would that Mr. Kerry encourage his children and the children of his colleague senators and congressmen to serve now in the Guard.
    
In the fighter-pilot world, we have a phrase we use when things are starting to get out of hand and it's time to stop and reset before disaster strikes. We say, "Knock it off." So, Mr. Kerry and your friends who want to slander the Guard: Knock it off.
    
COL. WILLIAM CAMPENNI (retired)
U.S. Air Force/Air National Guard
Herndon, Va.5

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040210-082910-8424r.htm

If someone doesn't see the difference between someone going to Vietnam and doing his duty, doing it well, and coming home and doing what he could to end the war that he had seen firsthand was unjust, and a man who shirked his responsibilities to the extent that she should have been punished at least three times that I know of (punishment being sent into combat) but somehow was given a pass... then so be it.

As others have said, do you mean that there should be no dissent? Even if you could show a direct cause and effect between (truthful) testimony and what POWs endured, it could still be argued that Kerry saved more lives than were damaged, by helping to bring the war to a close sooner. Either way, it seems immaterial in this election. If character is what you are concerned with, Kerry shows far more of it in these two scenarios. He did his duty, did it well, and took the more difficult path due to his personal convictions, which he has stuck to throughout. (Contrary to what has been commonly repeated here, he has never "recanted" his testimony.) If character is what you're concerned with, and if you put any stock in these two scenarios, surely Kerry will be your choice.

How forcefully you project accusations and innuendo as fact.

innuendo From latin innuendō which would make it a Romance language word. Isn't French a Romance language? Are you French McG?

The POWs see Kerry as a traitor. Their perception of his character is more important to me than mine or anyone else's.

As for President Bush's military record, it was addressed in 2000. Many voters didn't believe the lies then, and my prediction is they aren't believing them now.

Four more years.

McCain was both a POW and a spokesman for POWs. He doesn't see Kerry as a traitor.

And new documents have come to light since 2000.

I still dunno what I think about it all, and it may yet be proven wrong. That'd be no skin off my nose, and doesn't affect my vote one way or the other. But these allegations seem more fact-based than those put forward by the SBVfT, so far.

McCain is actively campaigning for President Bush. He is doing all he can to see that Kerry is not elected.

Although McCain has not said nor implied that Kerry is a traitor, it will be interesting (to me, at least) to see what he has to say about him (if anything) in his memoirs.

McCain is actively campaigning for president Bush -- and explicitly refuses to say anything negative about Kerry. He also quite stridently called on Bush to condemn the SBVfT ads (which he has yet to do...)

now Soz, you remember George did everything in his warchest to paint McCain as a brainwashed wacko in the last election, so McCain is tainted at best (besides he is from Arizona and we all know Arizonians are too weird for words) besides George let us know McCain had an Asian child (adopted) so he must be a demmunist sympathizer. You know how much I hate them demmunists!
See you in Boston? YES YES YES

:-D

McCain has refused to say anything negative about Kerry's military record.

If he thought much of Kerry himself or Kerry's senate record or Kerry on the issues, do you think he'd be campaigning for President Bush?

He's said lots of good things about Kerry, both general and specific.

He's a Republican, though. <shrugs> He wants a political future, he's campaigning for Bush. Doesn't say much one way or another, except for maybe that within that context his refusal to say negative stuff about Kerry means even more.

Check out former (Reagan Adm.) Secretary of the Navy James Webb's take on the situation. He was in Vietnam. He knows the Bush family.

http://www.jameswebb.com/articles/variouspubs/insidenavy.htm