RE: [Marxism] More on Bush and Texas Air National Guard

["Craven, Jim" <JCraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jak Barns inquired:

I went into the Army during that period. There was on the average an 18
month waiting period for the Reserves and Guard. To qualify as a pilot,
required roughly 18 months training as an Aviation Officer Candidate.
Bush seems to have done that, from late '68-early '70. As I recall for
the Air Force, Basic training was required before Aviation Officer
Candidate, or Officer Training School. Bush appears not to have done
that.If he was commissioned before that, rules were broken.  What I
don't remember is whether someone could qualify as a pilot without doing
a full active duty stint. What is clear is that Bush jumped over the
waiting list, was excused from Basic training, and jumped over others
for flight training who were more qualified than himself. He got the
lowest score possible, and still passed. Kind of like getting a 70% in
school. Lots of favortism.

Response (Jim C) This is from "Fortunate Son" by J.H. Hatfield:

From: "Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American
President", by J.H. Hatfield, Soft Skull Press, N.Y. 2001

"Junior lost his deferment from induction into compulsory military
service. Four years at Yale had helped him avoid the draft, but now he
was suddenly faced with the possibility that he would join the ranks of
the other half-million American youth in Vietnam, who were dying at the
rate of 350 a week..."

During the 1960s, however, many of George W's generation who joined
considered it an option to outright evasion of the draft. Overall,
National guard members had only a remote chance of ending up in Vietnam.
Throughout the war, only 15,000 of the more than 1,000,000 of the Guard
and reserves were sent to fight in the Southeast Asian country...

Speaking of himself in the third person, Bush later said, ' Yeah, I mean
one could argue that he was trying to avoid being the infantryman but my
attitude was I'm taking the first opportunity to become a pilot and
jumped on that and did my time.'..

Junior told Roland Betts, one of his classmates from Yale, that while he
wasn't particularly enthusiatic about enlisting in the Guard, he 'felt
that in order not to derail his father's political career he had to be
in military service of some kind.'..

In 1968, the national waiting list for Guard slots contained
approximately 100,000 names. Although there are no records of how long
the Texas waiting lists were at the time, Retired Major General Thomas
Bishop, who was the state's adjutant general in the late 60s, stated
there were lengthy waiting lists in Texas. ' We were full', he flatly
stated. In addition, Dale Pyeatt, associate director of the National
Guard Association of Texas, was quoted in the press as stating: 'There
were definately waiting lists. There wasn't any question about that.'..

Although pilots were in demand in Vietnam, Tom Hail, a historian for the
Texas Air National guard noted that records from the era did not show a
pilot shortage in the Guard squadron. Hail, who reviewed the unit's
personnel files for a special Guard museum display on Bush's service,
stated that his unit had 27 pilots at the time he initiated his
application for enlistment. While that number was two short of its
authorized strength, the unit had two other pilots who were in training
and another waiting a transfer. Hail asserted that there was no need to
fast-track applicants...

Four months before enlisting, Bush reported to Westover Air Force Base
in Massachusetts, a recruiting office near the Yale campus, to take the
Air Force Officers Qualification Test. While scoring 25 percentile for
pilot aptitude on the screening test--'about as low as you could get and
still be accepted', according to Retired Colonel Rufus G. Martin, a
former Guard personnel officer--and 50 percentile for navigator aptitude
in his initial enlistment test, Bush scored 95 percentile in the
'officer quality' section, compared with the current-day average of 88
percent...

His Guard application form asked for 'background qualifications of value
to the Air force.' Bush wrote 'None". Another question he had to answer
was whether he was interested in an overseas assigment. Bush checked the
box that said: 'do not volunteer...'

However Staudt [former Guard commander, Retired Brigadier General
General Walter "Buck" Staudt] did admit to the "Houston Chronicle" in
1988 that George W's wealthy background 'indirectly' helped him qualify
for one of the hard-to-fill officer slots, noting that most young men
didn't have the financial 'flexibility that would allow them to take off
for the training the positions required.' which was typically more than
a year.

Evidently Staudt was so pleased to have a Texas congressman's eldest son
in his Guard that he later staged a special ceremony so he could be
photographed administering the oath, instead of the captain who actually
had sworn Bush in. Later, when Junior was commissioned a second
lieutenant by another subordinate officer, Colonel Staudt once again
staged a special ceremony in his office for the cameras, this particular
time with Bush's VIP father flying in from Washington to pin the bars on
his son...

After the senior Bush refused to take questions and his campaign
chairman, James A Baker III admitted to CNN that Quayle ' was assisted
by his family ' in joining the [Indiana] Guard, George W, in an attempt
at damage control, met with the press and suggested it was enough that
Quayle had not fled to Canada as was the case with multitudes of
American draft evaders. ' The thing that's important, I want you all to
remember,' Junior told reporters, 'he didn't go to Canada. Let's keep it
in generational perspective.' ...[NOTE: Both Bush and Quayle were both
members of organizations actively promoting the widening of the Vietnam
War and were active in those organizations]

Since the National guard is run by the state, with its adjudant general
chosen by the governor, there are any number of ways that someone could
have intervened on behalf of privileged young men like Bush or Bentsen.
'Obviously the governor, lieutenant governor, and the speaker of the
house had a lot of influence on the National Guard ', said a former
personnel officer in charge of a Texas squadron. ' And if you look at
that list, you'll see besides George W. Bush, many sons of politically
prominent Texas families who just happened to get into the
Guard--regardless of the waiting lists.'...

...When asked how he got into the military reserves unit, Junior
jokingly but evasively replied, ' They could sense I was going to be one
of the great pilots of all time.' ...One Vietnam veteran and delegate to
the Republican National Convention in 1988, did not see the humor in
George W's response. ' While the Bush boy defending the Texas-Mexico
border from bandits in his F-102 fighter jet, I was watching my buddies
get their brains blown out by the VC (Viet Cong),' said James Johnson, a
wheelchair-bound double amputee who lost both ofh his legs in the Tet
Offensive in 1968. ' As Terry Kent Reed, a former Nam vet and author
once said, 'As a nation, you should never test your very best, while at
home you leave the rest.' [Footnote: One of Bush's rivals for the
Republican nomination in 2000, Senator John McCain, also said he slept
better at night as a POW in Vietnam for five-and-a-half years knowing
that George W. was protecting the coast of Texas from invasion.]

Veterans have also noted that Bush, who enlisted in May 1968 as an
airman basic, received his second lieutenant's commission only a few
months later, one of the most rapid rank ascensions in military
history...An Adjudant General's Department manual from the time listed
numerous qualifications required for commissioned officers, which for
the most part, Bush lacked: a high school education, 18 months of
military service, including six months of active duty, and completion of
officer training. A separate Guard pamphlet titled "Take Command, Apply
for OCS", detailed three ways for Guardsmen to become second
lieutenants: a 23 week officer training program, a nine-week training
'reserve component special officer candidate course, or completion of
eight weekend drill periods and two summer camps...

In addition to his special commission, the Guard gave Bush immediate and
considerable flexibility. After Basic training at Lackland Air force
Base and his commissioning as a second lieutenant, Junior received what
amounted to a two-month-plus vacation to florida before heading to
Georgia for yearlong flight school. During this time, Bush worked in the
political campaign of Edward J. Gurney, a Republican candidate for the
Senate and a close friend of the elder Bush. He occassionally returned
to houston for weekend Guard duty...

' He basically continued the partying tradition post-college ', said one
former Yale classmate. ' He graduated one day, enlisted in the National
Guard the next, went to basic training in San Antonio for a few weeks,
and then never let his foot off the accelerator of life. He flew jets,
drove fast cars, screwed more women than Hugh Hefner and partied
hardy'...

George W addresses his 'reckless' years head on, but not in detail. In
response to direct questions from the media, he refuses to answer
questions about possible illegal drug use, offering instead an
all-encompassing mea culpa. ' I have made mistakes', he repeatedly
stated during the presidential race. ' I choose not to inventory my sins
because I don't want anybody to be able to say, ' Well, the governor of
Texas did it, why shouldn't I?' That's why I have been somewhat
mysterious about my past...I'm not going to talk about what I did as a
child [flying F-102s]. It is irrelevant what I did 20 to 30 years ago.' 

Former Yale classmates and friends who partied with George W in houston
during his stint in the National guard, filled in the blanks beyond his
vague, Clintonesque admission, saying that he occasionally smoked
marijuana and snorted cocaine.

'We all experimented back then', explained one of his many girlfriends
during that period. ' but you have to remember that George was just
living for the moment. He never dreamed or schemed of running for
governor, let alone president, so he didn't worry in the 60s and 70s
about protecting his future political viability. Poor George, it'll
probably come back to haunt him when he runs for national office.'
[footnote: Ironically, a 1970 National guard news release at the time
read: 'George Walker Bush is one member of the younger generation who
doesn't get his kicks from pot or hashish or speed. As far as kicks are
concerned, Lieutenant Bush gets his from the roaring afterburner of the
F-102.' ]

For three months in 1972, he lived in Montgomery, Alabama, after
receiving a transfer to the Alabama National Guard so that he could work
as a paid political director of the ill-fated U.S. Senate campaign of
another friend of his father, construction magnate and former Postmaster
General Winton 'Red' Blount...[ pp. 37-50 Hatfield]

"Lt. Colonel William Harris Jr. was one of two commanding officers who
could not perform George W. Bush's annual evaluation covering the year
from May 1, 1972 to April 30, 1973. They stated in their filing that '
Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of this
report.' Fortunately for George W. Bush, Lt. Col. Harris is not here to
verify his 1973 statement. He is dead. Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian was
another of George W. Bush's commanding officers. He cannot testify in a
court of law as to George W. Bush's dereliction of his sworn duty. Lt.
Col. Killian is dead."

["Bush Body Count http://www.blk2k.com/bushbodycount/bodies.html ]

In June 1977 he formed his own drilling company, Arbusto Energy
('arbusto' means 'Bush' in Spanish). Like his father who made his
fortune in the oil business with the money of others, George W. founded
Arbusto with the financial backing of investors, including James R.
Bath, a Houston businessman whom bush apparently first met when they
were in the same Texas Air National Guard unit...In one of the most
bizarre footnotes to history, "Time" magazine described Bath in 1991 as
'a deal broker whose alleged associations run from the CIA to a major
shareholder and director of the Bank of Credit and Commerce.' BCCI, as
it was more commonly known, was closed down in July 1991 amid charges of
multibillion-dollar fraud and worldwide news reports that the
institution had been involved in covert intelligence work, drug money
laundering, arms brokering, bribery of government officials and aid to
terrorists. An accounting commissioned by the Bank of england finally
exposed the extent of BCCI's deficits and criminal offenses, forcing the
bank's eventual collapse...according to "The Outlaw Bank", an
award-winning 1993 book by "Time" correspondents Jonathan Beaty and S.C.
Gwynne, Bath originally ' ' made his fortune by investing money for
(Sheikh Kalid bin) Mahfouz and another BCCI-connected Saudi, Sheikh bin
Laden', allegedly the father of none other than Osama bin Laden, the man
accused by the U.S. government of masterminding the August 1998
terrorist bombings of the american embassies in Kenya and Tanzania which
killed more than 250 people...[Hatfield, pp 54-55]

In 1990, in an attempt to distance himself and his presidential father
from the growing BCCI scandal, George W stated in an interview that
neither he nor elder Bush had ever conducted business with James R.
Bath. Junior went on record at the time as saying that he met the
Houston businessman in 1970, when both were fighter pilots at the Air
National guard base at Ellington. (Interestingly Bush and Bath were
suspended from flying in September 1972 for 'failure to accomplish
annual medical examinations'.)...A few months later, however, the
release of tax documents and personal financial records forced George W
to admit that Bath had indeed been one of Arbusto Energy's original
investors. Bush said that to his knowledge, Bath's investment was from
personal funds, and no available evidence existed to determine that the
money came from Saudi interests. [Ibid. p. 56-57]

Bush stopped flying in April 1972, and this is the first unexplained
question. In his autobiography, "A Charge to Keep", Bush wrote that he '
was no longer flying because the F-102 jet I had trained in was being
replaced by a different fighter.'

While it is true that the F-101B would eventually replace the F-102, in
1972 the F-101B was an addition to the 11th FIS inventory not a
replacement. Phase-out of Bush's F-102 by the 111th FIS would not be
accomplished until September 1974, more than two years after Bush
stopped flying, and four months after his Air National guard commitment
was scheduled to end, meaning Bush could have flown 'his plane' right up
until the end of his six-year hitch.

The government spent a great deal of time (a full year), effort and
money (fully $1 million in current dollars) to train Lt. Bush to fly,
but he stopped flying two full years before he was scheduled to leave
the Guard. First lieutenants do not get to decide for themselves that
they are going to stop flying. Therefore, someone had to decide that
Bush would stop flying, and for a specific reason...As a pilot, Bush was
required to take a yearly medical exam. His military records show the
date of his last physical as May 1971; therefore he was due to take
another in May 1972. Before leaving Texas for alabama he should have
taken his physical, but didn't. Bush never took another flight physical,
prompting a written order suspending him from flight status. Why did he
apparently never again take the flight physical required of all pilots?

Bush aides/spokespersons attributed this failure variously to his being
in Montgomery, Alabama, while his personal physician was in Houston; and
because ' there were only a few special doctors who could do physicals'
(Karen Hughes, cited in an LA Times article...In fact, Bush's personal
physician couldn't perform a flight physical because only flight
surgeons can do that. And there was no scarcity of flight surgeons in
Montgomery, because the Alabama capital had two separate flying units...
[Hatfield pp. 386-87]

In November 1972, after the Senate election in alabama, George Bush
returned to Houston. This was the month after the 111th resumed
alert--just when that unit would have needed all the pilots it could
muster. But Lt. Bush had given up flying in April, and did not resume
flying upon his return to Texas. In fact, in a situation analogous to
his stay in Alabama, despite claims by Bush and his aides to the
contrary, he apparently did not do any Guard drilling of any kind upon
returning to Texas, a fact borne out by a lack of written records or
witnesses... [Ibid. p. 389]

Almost 2.5 million American men and women served in the Vietnam War, of
whom 153,300 were wounded and 58,209 killed...During the conflict--1964
to 1973--more than 26 million young men faced the possibility of being
drafted and hard choices about whether to participate in the U.S.
military. An estimated 90,000 refused induction into the service or fled
the draft by moving to Canada and other countries. Thousands of others,
like Bush, opted to continue their personal lives and reduce the risk of
seeing combat by joining the armed forces reserves and the National
guard. [Ibid. p. 43] 



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