Facts behind Bush going AWOL

[davidpt40]

I support President Bush.  Having just registerred as a republican a few weeks ago, it benefits myself and my party to be objective.  

Cecil replies:

Yeah, the mainstream media have really kept a lid on this one. We wouldn't know anything about Bush going AWOL if it hadn't been for that obscure underground newspaper the Boston Globe, which broke the story nationally in May 2000. But you're right that coverage has been pretty thin. A few months after the 2000 election, former Bill Clinton adviser Paul Begala said he'd done a Nexis search and found 13,641 stories about Clinton's alleged draft dodging versus 49 about George W. Bush's military record. Why the disparity? We'll get to that. First the basics: Yes, it's true, Bush didn't report to his guard unit for an extended period--17 months, by one account. It wasn't considered that serious an offense at the time, and if circumstances were different now I'd be inclined to write it off as youthful irresponsibility. However, given the none-too-subtle suggestion by the Bush administration that opponents of our Iraqi excursion lack martial valor, I have to say: You guys should talk.

Here's the story as generally agreed upon: In January 1968, with the Vietnam war in full swing, Bush was due to graduate from Yale. Knowing he'd soon be eligible for the draft, he took an air force officers' test hoping to secure a billet with the Texas Air National Guard, which would allow him to do his military service at home. Bush didn't do particularly well on the test--on the pilot aptitude section, he scored in the 25th percentile, the lowest possible passing grade. But Bush's father, George H.W., was then a U.S. congressman from Houston, and strings were pulled. The younger Bush vaulted to the head of a long waiting list--a year and a half long, by some estimates--and in May of '68 he was inducted into the guard.

By all accounts Bush was an excellent pilot, but apparently his enthusiasm cooled. In 1972, four years into his six-year guard commitment, he was asked to work for the campaign of Bush family friend Winton Blount, who was running for the U.S. Senate in Alabama. In May Bush requested a transfer to an Alabama Air National Guard unit with no planes and minimal duties. Bush's immediate superiors approved the transfer, but higher-ups said no. The matter was delayed for months. In August Bush missed his annual flight physical and was grounded. (Some have speculated that he was worried about failing a drug test--the Pentagon had instituted random screening in April.) In September he was ordered to report to a different unit of the Alabama guard, the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group in Montgomery. Bush says he did so, but his nominal superiors say they never saw the guy, there's no documentation he ever showed up, and not one of the six or seven hundred soldiers then in the unit has stepped forward to corroborate Bush's story.

After the November election Bush returned to Texas, but apparently didn't notify his old Texas guard unit for quite a while, if ever. The Boston Globe initially reported that he started putting in some serious duty time in May, June, and July of 1973 to make up for what he'd missed. But according to a piece in the New Republic, there's no evidence Bush did even that. Whatever the case, even though his superiors knew he'd blown off his duties, they never disciplined him. (No one's ever been shot at dawn for missing a weekend guard drill, but policy at the time was to put shirkers on active duty.) Indeed, when Bush decided to go to business school at Harvard in the fall of 1973, he requested and got an honorable discharge--eight months before his service was scheduled to end.

Bush's enemies say all this proves he was a cowardly deserter. Nonsense. He was a pampered rich kid who took advantage. Why wasn't he called on it in a serious way during the 2000 election? Probably because Democrats figured they'd get Clinton's draft-dodging thing thrown back at them. Not that it matters. If history judges Bush harshly--and it probably will--it won't be for screwing up as a young smart aleck, but for getting us into this damn fool war.

--CECIL ADAMS

[Nash]

A vast number of the accounts I've seen about this paint a much more sinister picture of what transpired, and several talk bout it in a more positive light. On balance, this is probably the most accurate and fair portrayal of the events as I personally believe them to be.

[-tronski-]

Why would an Air national guard unit have no airplanes...or did the support units still have the Air moniker as well?

 Tronsky

[Sabre]

As with the active Air Force, the non-flying squadrons outnumber the flying squadrons...it takes a lot of support to keep a single squadron of planes flying.  Many of the guard and reserve units are there to take over domestic duties when the active units deploy.

Sabre
USAF (Ret.)

[Suave]

Unless things have changed a lot, not showing up at national guard drills is not consider AWOL . I don't even know the correct terms anymore. UCMJ isn't part of my world anymore, but AWOL is not that big of deal, it happens a lot and the worst I've ever seen happen was a field grade article 15 for it .

[lord dolf vader]

http://www.realchange.org/bushjr.htm#vietnam

8. Skipped all his medical exams after they started drug tests.
In April 1972, the military started including routine drug tests in servicemen's annual physical exam, including urinalysis, questions about drugs and "a close examination of the nasal cavities" (for cocaine). According to the regulation, the medical took place in the month after the serviceman's birthday. For George W. Bush, this meant August 1972.

It was May, 1972 -- one month after the drug testing was announced -- that Bush stopped attending Guard duty. In August 1972, he was suspended from flight duty for failing to take his physical. (Click here to see the document.) A Bush campaign spokesman confirmed to the London Sunday Times that Bush knew he would be suspended. "He knew the suspension would have to take place." Bush never flew again, even though he returned to his Houston base where Guard pilots flew thousands of hours in the F-102 during 1973. The only barrier to him flying again was a medical exam (and his lack of attendance).

Careful readers will recall that when Bush issued his partial denial of drug use, he said (or implied) that he hadn't used them since 1974, but he pointedly refused to deny drug use before then, i.e. during his military service.





http://www.realchange.org/bushjr.htm#vietnam

[fd ski]

when i was in the military they locked people up for disappearing.