Well, Col. Hackworth, you can denigrate the service of those who served in the Air National Guard if you want but I choose to honor them for their service.
If there are any Air National Guardsmen in this forum or children of Guardsmen who served during the Vietnam war I would like to say, "Thank you for your service to your country. God bless you."
Who is he to say those in the Guard didn't serve during Vietnam???!!!
Hack is not revelant, and where was he during Waco? Down playing it in the SOF magazine. I am a military retiree, who served 5 years in the Army NG and the rest active duty. Hack can jump in the lake for all I care about him/his silly comments. Bush/Cheney2004
And Kerry dodged the draft, too. When his deferment was denied, he could have gone into the draft and served as assigned. Instead he enlisted for what he thought would be interdiction duty offshore. I am not criticizing him for this, my plan was to do the same thing (until my draft lottery number came out so high), I am just looking for the balance that requires noting that they both dodged the draft.
And from me too.
President Bush flew a dangerous F-102 on immediate callup in the Cold War and volunteered for Nam duty. Thats true Courage and now he is demonstrating His Courage and Leadership as a Heroic Commander-In-Chief. Every National Guard Veteran has earned Our Total Respect.
The other candidate has vetted a diatribe of Monday Morning Quarterback, and literally supported both sides of EVERY Issue so far at one time or another. The Swiftee's who tried to command him are doing Our Nation a Great Service stepping forward to illuminate the Real Character thirty five years ago. God Bless Our Country and Our Great President George W. Bush!!!
If President Bush wanted- he could go fly jets at American or United instead of drilling oil in west Texas. Flying jets is hard work- he may not have thought it was any better than running a small wild cat company.
Hack may have had a great battle field career- but like Wes Clark his rating with me has gone down every years since Klinton's second term.
I can assure you and Hack that the term "draft dodger" in those days did not apply to those in the National Guard.
That term was reserved for the likes of Bill Clinton who jobbed the system until the draft was over and those 25,000 or so brave hearts who ran up to Canada and the like.
There were several kinds of deferments - like 4F - not physically fit to serve, those folks weren't considered draft dodgers.
In fact John F'ing Kerry, almost certainly carried a 2S deferrment for several years...as soon as he graduated he would have been changed to 1A - that's prime draft material. So he did the sensible thing, join the Navy, after all his father was retired military and serving as an attorney for the State Department's Bureau of United Nations Affairs.. so he couldn't get away with what Clinton did
...on a per-capita basis the names on that wall are by far and away mostly Army and Marines.