Paul, since your post had something about the military record of
Bush and Kerry I`m glad I saved this-read on
The voters don't want to refight the Vietnam war, but with John Kerry
looking like the likely nominee, Vietnam returns to the front pages.
Kerry is accompanied on the campaign trail by the men he served with
in the Mekong Delta. "I know a little something about aircraft
carriers for real," he says, in an allusion to President George W.
Bush's premature "Mission Accomplished" landing last spring on the USS
Abraham Lincoln.

Highlighting Kerry's antiwar activism is a risky strategy for the
Republicans. To quote Kerry, who quotes the president: "Bring it on."
If the election turns into a debate over war records, Bush can't win.

Retired general Wesley Clark was widely criticized for not objecting
when left-wing activist Michael Moore called Bush a "deserter" in his
presence. As a military man, Clark knows that deserting is a capital
offense, reserved for those who have been court-martialed and found
guilty. The charge against Bush is that he was AWOL for a year of his
service in the National Guard. Once the pundits finished critiquing
the impact on Clark of the presumed gaffe, the next logical question
is to ask where Bush was during that year, how he got away with his
absenteeism, and does it matter?

Boston Globe reporter Walter Robinson did an exhaustive study of
Bush's military service, which was published in May 2000. Robinson
concluded that during Bush's final 18 months in the Texas Air National
Guard in 1972 and 1973, he did not fly at all and was "all but
unaccounted for," with no records to indicate that he attended any of
the required drills. Bush was working for a Senate campaign in Alabama
for part of the time, and was supposed to appear for duty there, but
never did. After the November '72 election, Bush returned to Houston,
but he was a no-show there, as well.

Under the rules at the time, guardsmen who miss duty were supposed to
be reported and could then be drafted. Seven months after Bush
returned to Houston, two of his commanding officers filed a report
noting that Bush had not been "observed" at his unit during the
previous 12 months. That evidently shocked Bush into performing. Over
the next three months, from May to July 1973, he spent 36 days on
Guard duty, for which he was rewarded with an early discharge to
attend Harvard Business School

In his new book, "American Dynasty," author Kevin Phillips traces
three generations of Bushes and the web of favoritism and influence
that perpetuates the line. Phillips says it was against Navy
regulations in 1942 to place 18-year-old George H.W. Bush in flight
training, but the rules were bent for the son of Prescott Bush. The
Los Angeles Times found a similar bending of the rules 26 years later,
Phillips writes. George W. didn't qualify for either a direct
commission or flight training, but he received both when he jumped
several waiting lists for a coveted spot in the Texas Air National
Guard.

Bush senior was a member of Congress at the time, and, according to
Phillips, had a friend speak to Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes about young
George. Barnes in turn contacted the commander of the Texas Air
National Guard, who greased the way. Direct commissions were generally
reserved for doctors because the military needed flight surgeons, and
expensive flight instruction was not normally given to somebody like
Bush, who didn't score well on the aptitude test for pilots and who
had shown no professional commitment to flying. According to Phillips,
it was arranged for Bush to train on F-102 fighters, dated aircraft
being phased out of service—added insurance that Bush would not go to
Vietnam.


In fairness, Bush has been candid about why he enlisted in the Air
National Guard. Like many young men of his generation, he wanted to
avoid Vietnam. He told one reporter, "I was not prepared to shoot my
eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I
willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how
to fly airplanes."

He has not been candid about his absences from the Guard. After the
Boston Globe story broke in 2000, Bush said through a spokesman that
he has "some recollection" of attending drills during the time period
in question, but conceded that he was not consistent. Records
unearthed by the Globe showed that Bush was removed from flight status
in August 1972 for failing to take his annual flight physical. Bush
aides said he didn't take the physical because his personal physician
was in Houston, and he was in Alabama working on a political campaign.
But that explanation didn't hold up because flight physicals must be
administered by certified Air Force flight surgeons, and Bush easily
could have found one at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala.,
where he was living.

Kerry's candidacy was elevated when a former Green Beret whose life he
saved showed up on the campaign trail in Iowa to attest to Kerry's
courage. In addition, former Georgia senator Max Cleland, who lost
three limbs in Vietnam and was defeated in 2002 after GOP attacks on
his patriotism, appears regularly with Kerry. Bush can't match that.
If he's smart, he won't try.


James Moore