Posted on 08/24/2004 3:06:29 PM PDT by A Navy Vet
Letters to the Editor
'Bush and I were lieutenants'
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.
COL. WILLIAM CAMPENNI (retired)
U.S. Air Force/Air National Guard
Herndon, Va.5
Distinguished Unit Citation (old) and the National Defence Medal (ribbon).
"filter unpleasant truths"
Only unpleasant one .. huh?? Poor thing!
I mean there are guys that served in Viet Nam during the war that are so humble, they never spoke of their heroic deeds. They never saw themselves as heroes, but they were. Actually, it was the vast majority that served. When they did speak, it was very matter of fact, open and closed. They never seemed to fully appreciate their contribution, be it big or small.
When embellishment did occur, it was not these men that did it. It was higher up by those that wanted their unit to be highly decorated. Sometimes the facts were distorted, but even they were not the root cause of the embellishments. It was the politicians that were always demanding some sort of measurable result. This wouldn't have occurred if the politicians had let go and let the military run the war.
For the sake of all that served during this time, it is still a wound, and one that goes very deep.
I've no doubt this has resurfaced, not because of Kerry's wartime service, but because of his antics on Capitol Hill immediately following his discharge. Yes, there were war atrocities, but they were few. Kerry spoke as though he had seen them personally, and if that were the case, it would point the finger at the unit he served with, not some other unit in another part of Viet Nam. In essence, Kerry pointed the finger of blame at his own unit.
It would help to hear John Kerry ask for a meeting with those he served with, and hear him humbly ask their forgiveness. They didn't bring this wound back to the surface. John Kerry did open the wound. The wound is not Kerry's performance during the war. That is merely a scab. It's what he did immediately after leaving military service that is the wound. Be it now, or later, he needs to personally apologize to those he served with. Hearsay won't do. He's got to face them. If he really wanted to show real leadership potential, that's where it would have to start.
For me, I am going to hope everyone will one day set the actual war from their minds, but not the valor of all that served honorably. It was a war misguided by politicians, not generals and admirals, and certainly not by the men serving under them. It was a dirty war from the White House down, and under both Presidents Johnson and Nixon. If servicemen were dirtied, it was most often due to the politicians, not the personal service of military members to their country. Only Goldwater seemed to have had the right idea. Unleash our military might, and nuke North Viet Nam if necessary, but save our men for the cleanup only. The war we knew never had to be the way it was.
BTTT!!!!!!
Very good post - worthy of a letter to a newspaper, now that libmedia's attention has been turned to Kerry and his military/anti-military record.
You really express honestly and emotionally the situation that was.
I might edit away the last sentence about Goldwater, which although completely correct, will elicit knee-jerk resistance for editorial boards, and 'taint' your message about the war as it was run by both D and R administrations.
I agree with you, and I was a strong Goldwater supporter! The way Johnson and McNamara and Westmoreland ran the war was despicable.
I just meant your message would pass muster for publication if the ref to Goldwater were removed.
If "W" was a "Good Stick" in F-102's, he was a "MENSCH!"
"JAWN" CANNOT "Come Close to" "W's" technical Skills.
ALAS, the "MEDIA" are FAR TOO IGNORANT to understand the Distinction.
Doc
There is SO MUCH "CRAP" "Out There" about the 'Guard!'
CLEARLY, "W" not only "Did His Duty," but he RISKED HIS LIFE for us.
It's ABOUT TIME that the "Voters" were Apprised of his Unselfish Risk to keep us Safe.
Somehow, the 'Dems have relegated Mr Bush's Military Service to the "Paper-Pushing" level.
America Needs to Know that "W" "Put His Life 'On the Line'" in his time "In the 'Guard!!'"
Your Information is NOT "Trivial!"
Doc
Trying to edumacate the sheeple today is a nearly hopeless task.
Thank you!
Excellent. PRint bump
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Take a look at posts 5 and 54 on this page
First oen is F-102 for sure
but post 54, look at the black stripe under GWN's shoulder...that looks pretty wide, maybe wide enough to go to the bottom insterad of the intake like post 5 would be
is post 54 an F-106?
I was never shot at, but all the deaths I saw in the CORPS were all at sea.
The F-106 had a triangle shaped windscreen where it joined with the canopy.
When I was at Perrin the side canopy windows were prime cumshaw items. When they were no longer fit for flight duty and were sent to the scrap heap they were welded into met farmes and sold as cocktail tables. Never could get high enough on a list to get one!
That tail on the right aint no F-102!
That looks more like an F-105!
The base in my home town flew F-102's for years, I saw them for the first 10 years of my life almost, went from F-100's to F-102's to F-100's again, Bradley Field
Also, I worked at the Air Museum, and we had an F-102 there, I used to polish the paint, that tail on the right aint no F-102!~
You're right. that's an F-105 to the right of the F-106. I posted the F-106 to show the difference in the windscreen. BTW the F-102 pilot had no forward vision capability since the radar scope filled the windscreen. The F-106 had a wider windscren and the pilot had some forward visibility.
Ok, Sorry, I was looking at the later pic, not post 54.
Westover AFB used to have a few QF-102's I used to watch in the early-mid 70's, 73, 74
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