Posted on 9/22/2004, 7:04:54 AM by kcvl
BYRON YORK, "NATIONAL REVIEW" WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, in May 1968, he signed up for six years in the Guard. And I think there is a kind of popular impression that his father got him in, he didn't show up and then he got out early. But that really kind of ignores what happened during his term in the Guard.
HUME: Byron, one quick question.
YORK: Sure.
HUME: Could his unit have been called up and could he have ended up in Vietnam?
YORK: Yes. It could indeed have happened.
HUME: But it didn't. It just didn't happen.
YORK: It did not happen.
HUME: Right.
YORK: But the first thing Bush did is that he underwent 53 weeks of flight training.
HUME: Is he full time in the Guard now?
YORK: This is not 53 weekends. This is 53 weeks of full-time flight training. You don't learn how to fly a fighter plane in a couple of weeks. Then he went to 21 additional weeks, full-time, of flight interceptor training because the F-102 plane he flew was an interceptor fighter. And then he went to additional training. And when you add it all together, to begin with, he went to about two years of full-time active duty training. After that, he did settle into the flying several times a month routine that Air National Guard officers were doing at the time. And he racked up hundreds and hundreds of hours doing it. So really in his first four years, he was actually quite active in the Guard.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
YORK: Right. The way it was measured there were points that you, as a Guardsman, accumulated toward your retirement. And the minimum standard per year, as a Guardsman, was that you had to get 50 points. And so one thing you can do with the records that the White House released is look through...
HUME: Now, we've got a table here showing what your investigation indicated he earned, right?
YORK: These are things added up from the documents the White House released in February. And they show that in his first full year, which was May '68 to May '69, Bush accumulated more than 253 points, next year 340, next year 137, then 112. What you can see is in the last two years of his six-year commitment, he gets just 56 points a year, which is very close, just above the minimum of 50 that you need to accumulate each year.
HUME: Now, some questions have been raised about those last two years and perhaps about these points. Explain how he did get those points, if you can.
YORK: Well, as you know, in the spring of 1972, he asked to leave Texas to go to Alabama to work on a Senate campaign. He was granted permission to go to an Air National Guard base in Alabama. And he missed several months. I mean there are several months in 1972 where he did not show up. There is no record that he showed up for duty in Alabama.
HUME: So a guy doesn't show up for duty. Is that in itself enough to mean that you haven't met your requirements?
YORK: Not that I understand it. The people who were in the Guard at the time tell me that this was not at all uncommon.
HUME: So what did you do then?
YORK: Well, you made it up. So what Bush did was in late 1972 and early 1973, you can see different periods in which he had kind of a flurry of activity, in which he went to drills enough to accumulate more than the minimum of points that he needed. It was nothing like he had done in the first couple of years where he got hundreds of points, but it was more than what was required. Then, as you know, he asked to be let out of his Guard service completely to go to Harvard Business School.
HUME: Now, that would have been prior to the end of the six-year period, correct?
YORK: That's exactly right.
HUME: Now that was the period where there are some documents suggesting that this is when he going to go to Boston, right? And to go to what? Harvard Business School (search).
YORK: Exactly.
HUME: Some documents indicated he was supposed to find a unit up there to report to, but he never did. What about that?
YORK: Well, as I understand it, in May 1973, the sixth year began. And in June and July, he did a lot of activity, accumulated 56 points just in those two months. So he kind of covered it. He asked for a discharge in October, was granted an honorable discharge from the Air National Guard. And as I understand it, that ended his...
HUME: And by that time, he did have enough points?
YORK: He did. And that ended his obligation. So he served five years and four months of a six-year...
HUME: So he didn't need to report in Boston? Legitimately didn't need to report?
YORK: No. It was after he received his honorable discharge, he did not have a further obligation.
HUME: All right. Well, not at great length but very succinctly, that seems to be what George Bush did to get his points.
Thank you, Byron.
YORK: Thank you.
btttttttttttttttt
Don't listen to the DEMOCRAT LIAR'S TALKING POINTS!!!
These are the FACTS!!!
Bush accumulated these points over 5 1/2 years in the National Guard (it doesn't matter that he got out about 6 months early because when he put in the request they gave it to him with a HONORABLE DISCHARGE because he got the REQUIRED hours)...
253
340
137
112
56 (only required 50)
56 (only required 50)
Check this out...
A lot of the posts I've read remind me of the Deanies
Has anyone compared the number of days of active duty spent by Bush & Kerry?
They're probably not old enough to vote! lol!
bttt
Don't listen to the DEMOCRAT LIAR'S TALKING POINTS!!!
He did a considerably larger percentage of his enlistment than JF'n did.
It absolutely pisses me off that this isn't noted by the MSM or the Republicans for that matter.
I had my 20 years and went 6 months past this but I did get an early retirement date so does this mean I didn't serve my time like others did eventhough I served my 20 years in the Military?
do you know anything about how hard it was to get into the guard in the first place?
was there a line of applicants?
just wondering...still unclear...
Military Service Records of Senator John F. Kerry
Military Records of Lieutenant (Junior Grade) John F. Kerry for U.S. Navy Military Service During The Vietnam War, 1968 - 1969 Note: Kerry was promoted to (Full) Lieutenant on Jan. 1, 1970 prior to requesting a discharge
* Acceptance of Discharge Naval Reserve (PDF) July 13, 1978
* Background Information (PDF) Feb. 1, 1966
* Bupers Orders to Gridley (PDF) Nov. 17, 1966
* Change of Duty (PDF) July 8, 1968
* DD214 (PDF)
* Duty Recommendations (PDF)
* Emergency Data (PDF) Sept. 12, 1967
* Enlistment Contract (PDF) Feb. 18, 1966
* Enlistment Photo (PDF) Dec. 16, 1966
* Fitness Reports (PDF) Apr. 12, 1967
* Honorable Discharge from Reserve (PDF) Feb. 16, 1978
* Leave Record (PDF)
* National Defense Service Medal (PDF)
* Naval Messages (PDF) Dec. 8, 1969
* Naval OCS Report (PDF)
* Nuclear Weapons Training Certificate (PDF) For training from May 8 - 11, 1967
* Office Order Memos (PDF) Dec. 5, 1969
* Officer Candidate Agreement (PDF) Feb. 18, 1966
* Order to Officer Candidate (PDF) July 14, 1966
* Pay Entry Base Date (PDF) Listed as Feb. 18, 1966
* Personnel Casualty Report (PDF)
* Presidential Unit Citation (PDF) "For Extraordinary Herosim" from Dec. 6, 1968 to Mar. 31, 1969
* Qualifying Questionnaire (PDF) Oct. 16, 1970
* Recommendations for Next (PDF) Nov. 24, 1969
* Record of Discharge (PDF)
* Release From Active Duty (PDF) Jan. 2, 1970
* Report of Home of Record (PDF) Dec. 1966
* Request for History of Service (PDF) May 24, 1986
* Request for Swiftboat Duty (PDF) Feb. 10, 1968
* Research Sheet F4-15 (PDF) June 21, 1967
* Reserve Office Appointment (PDF) Dec. 16, 1966
* Security Clearances (PDF) Dec. 16, 1966
* Service Record (PDF) Prepared Jan. 25, 1985
* Serviceman's Life Insurance (PDF) Dec. 8-9, 1968
* Statement of Service (PDF) June 21, 1967
* Thrice Wounded Reassignment (PDF) March 17, 1969
* Top Secret Clearance (PDF) April 28, 1969
* Training School Record (PDF) Feb. 18, 1968
* Transfer to Standby Reserve (PDF) March 1, 1972
* Travel Payment Order (PDF) Undated
* Vietnam Service Medal (PDF) April 8, 1968
(Source: John Kerry for President, Inc.).
http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:XkhpW60uWIgJ:news.findlaw.com/legalnews/lit/election2004/docs.html+john+kerry+military+&hl=en
I'd almost bet Bush and Kerry would at the least come up even, if not more time in for Bush and Kerry was active.
thank you for your service. we are in your debt.
do you know anything about how hard it was to get into the guard in the first place?
was there a line of applicants?
just wondering...still unclear...
******
From what Byron York and several others on Fox News have said is they were looking for people to join the Guard when George W. Bush applied. He was a fantastic pilot (in the top 5% in his class).
According to the fools who don't seem to know a damn thing about the military you should still be serving. You didn't finish your time. PUKE!
Like everything else...IGNORE THEM they are too stupid to understand.
No, his honorable discharge dropped out of the sky, not unlike manna from heaven!
Parenthetically, I really appreciate Brit Hume. He gets to the point when treating an issue, and usually "zeros in" on the salient points whenever things seem to wander.
And Brit does it in an objective, non-partisan way, IMHO.
He's a great asset to Fox News, and would be to any news organization, for that matter.
Maybe he needs to go to CBS to give them some credibility.
A huge majority of those who are internet-savvy see CBS as a total joke at this point.
And many of the mainstream critics of CBS are hardly conservatives.
Rather and CBS's reputation lie in shreds now, IMHO. But I digress...
I refuse to read either.
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