William McTavish, Capitol Hill Blues: With such a
record of absences, Bush could have been declared AWOL
(absent without leave) or – in extreme cases –
desertion. Normally, when a guard member or reservist
misses a certain number of meetings, they are sent to
active duty military.
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http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4013.shtml
Last Updated: Feb 4th, 2004 - 10:37:24
McTavish
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>From Deserter to Commander-in-Chief
By WILLIAM D. McTAVISH
Feb 4, 2004, 08:02
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As Campaign 2004 continues to heat up, George W. Bush
finds himself under scrutiny for what he did or did
not do while avoiding military service in Vietnam.
Bush graduated from Yale in 1968 and faced an
immediate draft into active military service. But, as
the son of a congressman from Texas, he was able to
walk into the offices of the Texas Air National Guard
two weeks before graduation and bypass a long waiting
list.
After jumping over others on the list, Bush also won a
spot in pilot’s training, even though he scored only
25 percent on the pilot’s aptitude test. In May, 1972,
he requested a transfer to an Alabama guard unit so,
he claimed, he could work on a Senate campaign in that
state.
Alabama is where serious questions arise over whether
or not Bush fulfilled his obligations to the Guard.
According to military records, his request for
transfer was never approved. In June, 1972, the
Guard’s personnel records center notified him by mail
that he was “ineligible” for the Air Reserve Squadron
he requested and he remained assigned to the reserve
unit in Texas.
Bush, however, says he went to Alabama anyway and
claims he attended guard meetings there.
No so, says William Turnipseed, the commanding officer
of the Alabama reserve unit. “Hell, I would have
remembered a guy from Texas reporting for duty in my
unit,” Turnipseed says. “I had been in Texas. Did my
flight training in Texas. Somebody from Texas would
have been something worth remembering.”
When the issue was raised in the 2000 campaign, Bush
said he “specifically remembered” performing some
duties in Texas. The problem is, the commanding
officer doesn’t remember any such thing and the
records back him up.
I requested copies of Bush’s military records as well
as the records of the guard units in Houston and
Alabama from May 1972 through May 1973 and went
through them page by page. I could not find any record
of Bush attending any guard meetings during that
period nor were there records of him performing any
service for either unit.
In addition, he did not report for his two-weeks of
duty during the summer and the records show his flight
status revoked in August 1972 for missing his annual
flight exam.
He was, Turnipseed remembers, “nowhere to be found.”
Bush finally surfaced again in Houston in May 1973 and
attended meetings through July of that year. In
September he requested an early discharge to attend
Harvard Business School and was granted a discharge
the following month.
With such a record of absences, Bush could have been
declared AWOL (absent without leave) or – in extreme
cases – desertion. Normally, when a guard member or
reservist misses a certain number of meetings, they
are sent to active duty military.
But George W. Bush was the son of George H.W. Bush,
Congressman from Texas, and officers who want to stay
in the military do not risk their careers going after
recruits with juice, even irresponsible ones.
Dubya got into the guard by using his daddy’s
influence to move to the front of a long line. Getting
into the guard kept him out of harm’s way in Vietnam
but it did not instill him with any sense of
responsibility.
So the man who kissed off his military obligations 32
years ago and let others fight and die in his place
later became President of the United States and
ordered still others to fight and die.
Which is a disgrace for those young men and women who
have died in Iraq.
It’s one thing to fight and die for your country. It’s
something else to do it for a deserter.
(Bill McTavish is the editor of Capitol Hill Blue)
© Copyright 2004 by Capitol Hill Blue