What's the big deal about Bush's military career? It may have not been exciting, but at least he was flying something other than a steel desk, though obviously never in combat. If there had been any wrongdoing there should be some sort of investigation... and not by news reporters Even his political opponents aren't getting upset about this:
"I've heard those charges. I don't know whether they're established or not. He was never prosecuted for it. The question in this election is can we bring a higher standard of leadership to America." - Wesley Clark
Nothing remarkable there. He isn't a war hero but he also isn't a criminal like some people are saying...
"I've heard those charges. I don't know whether they're established or not. He was never prosecuted for it. The question in this election is can we bring a higher standard of leadership to America." - Wesley Clark
In the winter of 1968, as a senior at Yale and therefore about to lose his student deferment, Bush went to Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts to be tested as a pilot candidate. He seems to have scored in the 25th percentile as a pilot (qualifying, but just barely), in the 50th percentile as a navigator (promising material), and in the 95th percentile as an officer (outstanding).
He joined the Texas Air Guard on May 27, 1968, with the rank of Airman Basic--the lowest enlisted grade. He began his military service the following day at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. He served as enlisted man until he completed basic training on September 3. He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant on September 4, and on the same day was assigned as a pilot trainee to the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, 147th FI Group, at Ellington AFB, also in Texas. Before beginning his training, however, he took a leave of absence to work on Senate campaign in Florida, returning occasionally to Houston to attend weekend Guard meetings at Ellington.
In November 1968 2nd Lt Bush went back on active duty and was sent to the 3550 Student Squadron at Moody AFB Georgia. If he followed the usual regimen, he would have received 30 hours of training in a T-41 trainer--a military version of the familar and long-lived Cessna 172 "spam can." He then advanced to T-37 and T-38 jet trainers. On May 26, 1969, his 201 (personnel) file credited him with 226 days' service as a second lieutenant. Adding to this his approximately 95 days of enlisted service, he had served nearly eleven months during his first year in the Air Guard. (Note that this was full-time service, not the weekend duty associated with the National Guard.)
His father, then a Congressman, gave the squadron's commencement speech in November 1969, and on December 29, 1969, Bush returned to the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron at Ellington AFB. Here he trained first in the Lockheed T-33--a trainer version of the famous F-80 Shooting Star fighter of the Korean War era--and finally in the F-102 Delta Dagger. This aircraft had been designed to intercept Russian bombers coming over the North Pole to attack the continental United States. As an interceptor, it had no guns, but carried 6 radar-guided missiles and 24 unguided rockets in a fuselage weapons bay. The plane had a span of 38 feet, gross weight of 28,000 pounds, one Pratt & Whitney turbojet with a thrust of 16,000 pounds, and a top speed of 780 miles per hour.
Says a frankly anti-Bush article in the Washington Post: "In December 1969, George W. returned to Houston to hone his skills and eventually fly solo on the all-weather F-102, firing its weapons and conducting intercept missions against supersonic targets. He learned with a verve that impressed his superiors, becoming the the first hometown graduate of the 147th's newly established Combat Crew Training School." While Bush was in the 111th FIS, the parent group came off runway alert and was assigned the mission of training F-102 pilots in the United States for the Air National Guard.
Bush got his pilot's wings in March 1970. By May 29, his records show, he had served 313 days as a second lieutenant during his second year in the Air Guard. On June 23, he graduated from Combat Crew Training School. This completed his active-duty career with a cumulative total of about 21 months in uniform.
Bush recalls that toward the end of his training, he volunteered for the "Palace Alert" program which sent qualified F-102 pilots to Europe and Asia for six-month tours. He was turned down, presumably because he did not have the 1,000 hours of flying time to qualify for the program. That more or less ruled out the possibility that he would be sent to Southeast Asia to take part in the Vietnam War. (In any event, he wouldn't have stayed long: the F-102 detachments in Vietnam and Thailand were shut down before the end of May 1970.)
Bush was now a part-time serviceman, as is typical in the National Guard. He flew the F-102 a few times a month with the 147th, which according to the Washington Post kept two Delta Daggers on alert at all times. That evidently included night flying. A friend recalls that he kept off alcohol for 24 hours before such assignments. On November 7, 1970, he was promoted to 1st Lieutenant, and by May 1971 his records show that he had served 43 additional days as a 2nd Lieutenant and 3 days at his new rank--a very full year by the standards of the Guard.
In the fall of 1971, Bush became a management trainee with a firm that acquired tropical plants. "We traveled to all kinds of peculiar places, like Apopka, Florida, which was named the foliage capital of the world," the Washington Post quoted his boss as saying. Once or twice a month, Bush would announce that he had flight duty and off he would go, sometimes taking his F-102 from Houston to Orlando and back. "It was really quite amazing," the boss said. "Here was this young guy making acquisitions of tropical plants and then up and leaving to fly fighter planes." He stayed with the firm for nine months.
On May 26, 1972, after four years in the Guard, Bush requested a transfer to the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron in Montgomery, Alabama, where he was working on another senatorial campaign. He was turned down because an "obligated Reservist can be assigned to a specific Ready Reserve position only." During this twelve-month period--his fourth year as a Guardsman--he served only 22 days on active duty. I'm surprised that the pilot of a supersonic plane could stay current at this pace, but there seems to be no doubt that Bush managed it.
There's a question as to whether he actually did any military service in the next several months, and in August he was grounded from flying because he'd missed his annual flight physical. In September, he was assigned or reassigned to the 187th Tactical Reconnaisance Wing in Montgomery, and in November he returned to Houston to work as a counselor with black youngsters. In his next annual fitness report, his rating officer noted that "He cleared this base [Ellington AFB] on 15 May 1972 and has been performing equivalent training in a non flying status with the 187th Tac Recon Gp, Dannelly ANG Base, Alabama."
In May 1973, Bush took his last physical, which identified him as a "crew member on flight status," so he wasn't grounded during his final year of Guard service. He was assigned to nine days of training on three weekends in late May and early June. (There is no entry on his 201 file of any days served during his fifth and sixth years in the Air Guard, giving web-loggers an opportunity to allege that he was "absent without leave" for these two years. Some claim to have documents proving this allegation, but when I try to retrieve them, I get a "404" error or else the document says something else entirely. In any event, he indisputably did serve additional days beyond what is shown in the 201 file.)
Meanwhile, Bush was accepted at Harvard Business School, to matriculate the following September. Other records show that from May to July, 1973, he logged 36 days of duty. In all likelihood, this was to clean up the lapses in his service over the past two years. (At a weekend per month, plus two weeks' summer camp, a Guardsman might be expected to serve 26 days a year.) Supposedly his last day in uniform was July 30.
On October 1, 1973, Bush was given an honorable discharge from the Texas Air National Guard, and was transferred to an inactive unit in Colorado for that month and most of November. He was 27 years old, and had served the equivalent of 24 months on active duty.
If I were judging Bush on his career as an Air Force officer, I would be inclined to grade him much as his Yale professors did, with a "gentleman's C" (which in this era of grade inflation would translate to a B-plus). I can't of course judge him as a pilot, except to doff the virtual hat to anyone who could handle a supersonic aircraft without killing himself or a bystander.
Nothing remarkable there. He isn't a war hero but he also isn't a criminal like some people are saying...
