What
Military Service Qualifies
Bush To Lead Iraq War
By Evelyn Pringle
29 May, 2007
Countercurrents.org
The tax dollar funded photo op
of Bush landing on an aircraft carrier all dressed up in a flightsuit
to announce Mission Accomplished was a desperate attempt to give the
illusion that Bush actually did serve his country in the military and
to bolster his image as a self-described "war president."
This country is now paying
a heavy price for Bush's lack of military experience, and his taunting
invitation of "bring it on," that has resulted in a never
ending stream of challengers traveling to Iraq to teach our loudmouth
President a lesson.
When evaluating Bush’s
performance as the Commander-in-Chief leading the Iraq war, it might
be helpful to take another look at his years of service in military,
or lack thereof.
The story of the draft-dodger
in the White House who keeps sending more troops off to die in Iraq
began in 1968 while the Viet Nam war raging and his student deferment
ended, meaning it would only be a matter of time before he would be
drafted.
However, his father jumped
in to save him from that certain fate by lining up a slot in the Texas
Air National Guard to make sure that sonny boy remained far away from
Nam.
Of course for his part, Bush,
the honest guy that Americans have come to know, has always denied that
he received any help. “There was no special treatment," he
said when running for governor in 1993. "They were looking for
pilots and I was honored to serve.”
“I can just tell you,"
he mumbled to reporters during campaign 2000, "from my perspective,
I never asked for, I don't believe I received special treatment."
To put the whole special
treatment debate in perspective, it should be noted that at the time
Bush was accepted in the Texas Air National Guard, there was a waiting
list of roughly 500 men and it usually took about a year and a half
to get to the top of the list.
When asked about the waiting
list issue, Bush spokesman at the time, David Beckwith, claimed that
Bush was more qualified. "A lot of people weren't qualified"
he said, “so special commissions were offered to those willing
to undergo the extra training required.”
However, Charles Shoemake,
chief of personnel at the Texas Guard from 1972 to 1980, publicly denied
that there was a shortage of pilots or qualified applicants. "We
had so many people coming in who were super-qualified," he said.
Any claim that Bush was more
qualified than 500 other men is laughable being he only scored 25% on
the Pilot Aptitude Test, which happens to be the lowest score permitted
for a wannabe pilot at the time.
The truth was finally revealed
in 1999, when Ben Barnes, former Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives,
said that he helped Bush get in the Guard at the request of Bush family
friend, Sid Adger, according to an account of the events in a statement
released after Barnes testified in a deposition for a federal lawsuit
in September 1999.
Barnes also testified that
he had met with a top Bush adviser to discuss the matter of rebutting
rumors that Bush got special treatment, and to prove that the meeting
took place, Barnes produced a note from Bush himself thanking him for
his help in rebutting rumors that Bush's father had helped find a slot
for his son in the Guard.
And true to form, with full
knowledge that he wrote the note, on September 9, 2000, that pathological
liar Bush still claimed, "No Bush ever asked Sid Adger to help."
Bush also claims that he
got no special treatment when he received a direct appointment to Second
Lt right out of basic training without having to go through officer
candidate school which cleared the way for a slot in pilot training
school. "Our information is there was absolutely no special deal,"
said Bush spokesman Beckwith.
However, in the September
1999 deposition Barnes testified that after receiving a request from
Adger, he called Gen James Rose and recommended Bush for a pilot position.
When Bush joined the Guard
his stated goal was "making flying a lifetime pursuit," and
he signed a document that stated: "I understand that I may be ordered
to active duty for a period not to exceed 24 months for unsatisfactory
participation."
Based on that statement alone,
Bush should have been shipped to Viet Nam in 1972 when he was permitted
to move to Alabama to work on a political campaign and was ordered to
attend drills at Dannelly Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama from
May 1972 to November 1972, and went AWOL.
There is no record that Bush ever showed up. During the 2000 campaign,
Bush claimed he attended drills at Dannelly and said, "I was there
on a temporary assignment and fulfilled my weekends at one period of
time."
"I made up some missed
weekends," he said, "I can't remember what I did, but I wasn't
flying because they didn't have the same airplanes.”.
"I fulfilled my obligations,"
he stated.
His spokesman Dan Bartlett
also vouched for the tall tale. "He specifically recalls pulling
duty in Alabama,” Bartlett said, “he did his drills."
Although there is no record
of Bush being at Dannelly, there is plenty of evidence to prove that
he was supposed to be. For instance, military records show a September
15, 1972, order stating: "Lt Bush should report to Lt. Col. William
Turnipseed, DCO, to perform equivalent training," on “7-8
October, and 4-5 November."
In later interviews, Turnipseed
and his administrative officer, Kenneth Lottsaid, said Bush never showed
up. “Had he reported in I would have had some recall, and I do
not,” Turnipsee said. “I had been in Texas, done my flight
training there, If we had a 1st Lt from Texas, I would have remembered,”
he stated.
When questioned by reporters
about Tunispeed's interview, the truthful and honest coward now sitting
in the White House, brushed him off by saying: "I read the comments
from the guy who said he doesn't remember me being there, but I remember
being there."
By far the most colorful
comments about Bush being AWOL were quotes in the February 13, 2004
Memphis Flyer, from interviews with 2 former guardsmen, Bob Mintz and
Paul Bishop, who were members of the Alabama unit when Bush claimed
he was there.
These men did attend drills
in the summer of 1972 and both said they were certain Bush was not there.
“I remember that I heard someone was coming to drill with us from
Texas," Mintz said. "And it was implied that it was somebody
with political influence."
"I was a young bachelor
then," he recalled, "I was looking for somebody to prowl around
with.”
Mintz said the squadron only had 25 or 30 pilots and told the Flyer,
“There’s no doubt I would have heard of him, seen him, whatever.”
He said, at the time he assumed
that Bush had “changed his mind and went somewhere else”
to do his duty. Previously a Republican, Mintz also discussed his reaction
to outright dissembling by Bush. “You don’t do that as an
officer," he said, "you don’t do that as a pilot, you
don’t do it as an important person, and you don’t do it
as a citizen."
"This guy’s got a lot of nerve,” Mintz said.
Mintz told the Flyer that
no members of the Alabama unit remembered Bush being there. "I
talked to one of my buddies the other day” he said, “and
asked him if he could remember Bush at drill at any time, and he said,
‘Naw, ol’ George wasn’t there.'"
That buddy was Paul Bishop,
who at the time of the interview was a pilot for a charter airline that
was flying war supplies into Iraq. He was also a veteran of the first
Gulf War and voted for Bush in 2000. “I never saw hide nor hair
of Mr. Bush,” Bishop said.
He told the Flyer that he
did not pay much attention to Bush’s claims in the 2000 campaign,
but he had since the Iraq war started. “It bothered me,"
he said, "that he wouldn’t ‘fess up and say, Okay,
guys, I cut out when the rest of you did your time."
"He shouldn’t
have tried to dance around the subject," he stated, "I take
great exception to that. I spent 39 years defending my country.”
This interview with the Flyer
is 3 years old and back then Bishop was already saying that he disapproved
of the way Bush was handling the war and believed the problem was due
to Bush’s lack of combat experience. “I think a commander-in-chief
who sends his men off to war ought to be a veteran who has seen the
sting of battle,” he said.
“In Iraq we have a
bunch of great soldiers,” he stated, “but they are not policemen.
... right now it’s costing us an American life a day. ... We’ve
got an over-extended Guard and reserve.”
It would be interesting to hear what Mr Bishop has to say about Bush
these days.
In light of his obviously
low IQ, it could honestly be said that Bush simply can not remember
the name of every guardsman in Alabama, but according to a spokesman
for the Alabama Guard, there were 600 to 700 members in that unit and
Bush can not remember one name, and amazingly, not one Alabama guardsman
has come forward to proudly announce that he served his country right
along side the current President of the US.
In any event, first hand
sitings would be impossible to find because Bush’s own military
records prove he was AWOL in Alabama and Texas. In the fall of 1972
after the election Bush reportedly did return to Texas but not to Ellington
Air Force Base.
On May 2, 1973, his Superior
Officers at Ellington, Jerry Killian and William Harris, stated they
were unable to complete Bush's "yearly" evaluation because:
“Lt Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period
of this report.”
Which means a year after
he trotted off to Alabama, and 7 months after he returned to Texas,
Bush’s commanding officers in Texas still thought he was in Alabama.
The report said Bush "cleared this base on 15 May 1972, and has
been performing equivalent training in a non-flying status with the
187 TAC RECON GP, Dannelly Ang Base, Alabama.”
Americans should tell members
of Congress to consider the military service record of the man deciding
the fate of our young men and women in Iraq before granting his next
request for funding to keep them there until hell freezes over apparently.
[email protected]
(Evelyn Pringle is a columnist
for OpEd News and an investigative journalist focused on exposing corruption
in government and corporate America)
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