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Good grief seven, by the sheer length of your blog

I'll concede for sake of argument that Dubya fulfilled his obligation.   Kerry for his part also served with honor.  If he carvorted with Hanoi Jane he was only exercising his freedom of speech.  We did not lose that war because some second lieutenant exercised his free speech.  We lost because we shouldn't have been there in the first place.  Nor should we be in Iraq.  Dubya has piled lie upon lie about the need for this conflict and that is treasonable no matter how you want to spin matters. 

posted by SlyCy on September 20, 2004 at 5:22 AM | link to this | reply

Hey Sly

This is the third straight election cycle that they have tried to make Bush's guard service an issue and by now everybody knows that the accusations have got no teeth. If they had the element of truth in them, Bush would be bogged down with it in the court of public opinion because the American public is offended when it is lied to.

The charges being brought against Kerry, on the other hand, carry the weight of verifiable evidence and first-hand eyewitness accounts that counter Kerry's claims. Again, even HE has had to admit, backtrack, recant, and re-assess, which should make you wonder, what else is he lying about that we haven't discovered yet?

Bush was discharged honorably. What is there to defend? If there are any guardsmen out there from that era that know something dishonorable that Bush did, they are free to bring their charges and their evidence forward.

The Dems have worked around the clock, 24/7, to find them. They've looked under every rock and behind every tree to try to find someone to testify against Bush --- they can't find one, let alone 250, the number of Vietnam vets who are testifying against Kerry's account of that 16 weeks out of his life.

The best they could do then was to produce forged documents in an effort to falsely impugn the president by having Dan try to pass the forgeries off on the American public as legitimate. And you say that Bush plays dirty politics? I guess you also forget the "he's a drunk" charges they heaped on him in the last 72 hours of the 2000 election. But it's Bush who practices dirty politics.

As for the economy, let me just say in one of the biggest understatements of the year, John Kerry is not the answer. National security? JK wants the U.N. in charge of our security. He wants permission slips from France, Germany, and the rest if or when the United States needs defending. The majority of Americans and I have only one last thing to say --- NEVER.

Sly, the following is an article that I will be posting soon but I’d like for you to have it first. Talk to ya later.

Bush and I were lieutenants
Letter to the Editor, 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.

posted by 777777 on September 18, 2004 at 7:56 PM | link to this | reply

Dubya has not even affirmed that he had not gone awol

from the Army Reserve.  Let's forget that but aside from the fact that Bush is a military illiterate, what are we going to do to get our troops home.  What are we going to do about the economy that is so woeful for the average American which the Republican Party chooses to  ignore?  We have big problems and our country is not one whit safer fromterrorism since Dubya took over and his policies will never make us so.

 

posted by SlyCy on September 18, 2004 at 5:22 AM | link to this | reply

an additional thought

I don't believe that John Kerry is nearly as bashful as you seem to think. I assure you that he would put these charges to rest if he were able to, especially since they seem to be taking their toll on him and his campaign. And he also is not bashful to lace into GW on every issue.      TALK  ATTCHA LATER, Sly

posted by 777777 on September 17, 2004 at 8:17 PM | link to this | reply

2 quick points

I am with you 100% that it doesn't matter what these 2 did 30-35yrs ago and I have been saying that from the start. Nobody is the same person that they were 3 decades ago and if youthful indescretions condemns a person forever then  I  am surely condemned. If John Kerry made serious mistakes when he was young, it doesn't mean he doesn't have the right to run for or serve as president of the United States today. The problem I have with him is the untruthfulness that he demonstrates now. And please don't say that he has been truthful because he, himself, has had to recant a number of things that he has said.

 For example, he has had to recant that he didn't throw his medals over the White House fence as he claimed earlier, he threw away  someone else's. He had to recant the Christmas in Cambodia story. Just this past March, he told the members of an all black church audience that as the "bullets were flying all around him on the ground in Vietnam" he learned that bullets were also flying back in the U.S., one of which took the life of the great Martin Luther King.  Yet,  Kerry's own website shows that he had been out of Vietnam for some 4 MONTHS BEFORE  Dr. King was assassinated!  But, if no one had ever challenged him on these statements, he would've been perfectly content to let us all believe things that were untrue, because he perceives that these things make him look good.  You see, it's not about 35 years ago with this person, it's about what he's doing and saying  now that has a bearing on his qualifications to be president.

Say what you will about the Vets For Truth messengers, even John Kerry has had to acknowledge the truthfulness of at least some of their charges, and you and I stand better informed today because of them.

posted by 777777 on September 17, 2004 at 8:07 PM | link to this | reply

I read the rest of your comments and

have only this to say.  If Kerry had the audacity to respond to the comments that the Dubya administration deserves the dubyas would be in the same boat that Kerry is.  They are like boxers that keep hitting below the belt but then scream foul when their opponent does  the same thing.  Have a nice day seven.

posted by SlyCy on September 17, 2004 at 5:01 AM | link to this | reply

I can say the exact same thing about yourfacts seven.

Two of the biggest Swiftie people had direct contacts with the Dubya Aministration.  They had to resign their positions.  I glanced over the rest of your comment but it hardly matters what either candidate did thirty years ago.  My position is that Dubya plays dirty politics like his dad and Kerry is mute instead of sticking up for himself.  No politicians have ever played as dirty as these people and they make me sick.  Excuse me while I take a deep breath and read the rest  of your comement.

posted by SlyCy on September 17, 2004 at 4:58 AM | link to this | reply

Please check your facts before you blog

The problem I have with you folks on the other side of the fence is not that we disagree with one another, honest disagreements are going to happen all the time. But how does it serve your cause or anyone else's to base arguments on inaccuracies, innuendo, and out and out falsehoods? Do you care about what is actually true or do you just want to believe whatever spin the media spits out that's anti-Bush? It's one thing to sincerely disagree with his policies, but quite another to advance falsehoods about the man. The American public is sick of the nonsense the Dems are spinning, and that's why public opinion is breaking in Bush's direction in a big way.

The "Dubya Administration" has NEVER mentioned Kerry's Vietnam service except to say that Kerry served honorably and ought to be proud of his service. Why can't you all finally get that straight? These Veterans for Truth have their own ax to grind with Sen. Kerry and by serving in Nam just like Kerry, they too, have earned the right to be heard (they have nearly 100 purple hearts and silver stars among them) . What is this business that the "cutthroat criminals that run this administration" is accusing him of treason? What preposterously untrue nonsense.

Secondly, Do you not think Kerry would immediately mount an aggressive defense of these charges if he could? His inability to defend himself should speak volumes to anyone with only a small portion of intelligence. You were right when you said that he is in a war right now. He's in the fight of his life and I assure you, he would debunk the allegations without hesitation if he could.

Third, if you cared about the actual truth, then you would read Cheney's actual sentences, not what the "mainstream" media chose to edit his talk down to. Cheney was talking about how certain people would treat a terrorist attack as a crime that should be tried in the courts, NOT as an act of war. Sorry, I'm not interested in "arresting" Osama, reading him his rights, and giving him a phone call. That was the whole point of Cheney's speech but I seriously wonder if you care to know the real truth. I've long since come to know that those who hate President Bush have little regard for the actual facts and go to great lengths to invent their own.

Disagree if you must, but disagree honestly. The inventions and distortions only weaken what is already a dying cause.

 

 

posted by 777777 on September 16, 2004 at 8:57 PM | link to this | reply