Posted on 09/17/2004 6:50:48 PM PDT by jseth
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon Friday released more documents on President Bush’s Vietnam-era Air National Guard Service, including a letter from his then-congressman father George Bush thanking a general for “taking interest in a brand new Air Force trainee.”
Dozens of pages of documents, including historical records of the Air Guard unit in which Bush served, were released on orders from the White House. His National Guard service, which critics have charged was performed to avoid going into combat, has become an issue of contention in the presidential race.
“That a major general in the Air Force would take interest in a brand new Air Force trainee made a big impression on me,” then Texas Rep. George Bush wrote to Maj. Gen. G.B. Greene Jr., commander of the Lackland Air Force Base Military Training Center, on Sept. 11, 1968.
George Bush, who himself also later became president, referred to a letter that he had received from Greene and said that his son was “anxiously looking forward to going to flight school and, with parental pride, I do have the feeling that he will be a gung ho member of the U.S. Air Force.”
The letter was written shortly after young Bush joined the Guard for pilot training. He later switched to the Alabama Air National Guard, and records released to date by the White House have not settled a controversy over allegations that Bush did not complete required training there.
“I was surprised and very, very pleased to receive your letter of August 27th,” Bush’s father said in the letter, which was written on congressional stationery. The file does not contain Greene’s letter to Bush’s father, but shows the letter his father wrote back.
Bush’s father, a naval flier who served in the Pacific in World War II, said in his one-page letter to Greene that young Bush “was particularly enthusiastic about the dedication of the men he met” and kept his parents up the first night home talking about the training.
“In this day and age when it has become a little bit fashionable to be critical of the military, I was delighted to see him return to our house with a real pride in the service and with a great respect for the leaders that he had encountered at Lackland,” the elder Bush wrote.
“General Greene, this is a personal letter but I did want to write to you from the heart and thank you for what you, Sgt. (Henry) Onacki and the others are doing, and obviously doing well,” Bush concluded.
The letter and other material were the latest in a stream of documents surfacing about Bush’s service three decades ago during the Vietnam War, when Bush’s critics say he got preferential treatment as the son of a congressman and U.N. ambassador. Critics have also questioned why Bush skipped a required medical examination in 1972 and failed to show up for drills during a six-month period that year.
The White House has said repeatedly that all of Bush’s Guard records have been disclosed, only to be embarrassed when new documents have turned up. The long-running story took an unusual turn when CBS uncovered documents purportedly showing that Bush refused orders to take a physical examination in 1972 — but then the authenticity of the documents came under doubt.
In addition to the letter from Bush’s father, the documents contain news releases that the Texas Air National Guard sent to Houston newspapers in 1970 about young Bush, then a second lieutenant and new pilot.
“George Bush is one member of the younger generation who doesn’t get his kicks from pot or hashish or speed,” one news release said. “Oh, he gets high, all right, but not from narcotics.”
The press release and others from the Texas Air National Guard were disclosed to the media, including NBC News, in 1999, but have resurfaced amid the current furor over the president's military service.
Gasp! No! Horrors!
Hmmm... was it my imagination, or were the Rats planning to run ads attacking Bush for saying he was in the Air Force as well as the Guard?
It seems that this Air Force General believed W was in the Air Force.
There was a day when adults sent polite letters to each other as a matter of course. Now, it appears it's a federal crime.
George HW Bush is very well known for writing thank you notes! Thousands each year when President and in public life.
What? No letter from the CO asking Rep. Bush about Dubya's favorite cereal or what his favorite comic books are so they can make him feel more at home at Lackland?
Well, I'm sure Someone In Texas is slaving over a hot keyboard right now and Dan will break that story when it's time...
What's amazing is the media tries to portray the letter from the General to 41 as somehow being sinister...
Yet, if the General wrote to 41 to say "Your son is a bad recruit and won't obey my orders"... can you imagine the hysterical reaction?
The bias is incredible.
And sickening.
And regardless of what the letters say, which isn't much, we should hold W. responsible for this ... why, exactly?
I guess my son got special treatment too, since we got a letter from his commanding officer saying what a great job he was doing. They send them to the parents if the soldier is not married, otherwise to the spouse, whenever the soldier is doing a good job.
The press doesn't want to protray these letters as common curtesy when the soldier is doing well. My son was an enlisted man, and in the infantry.
I guess my son got special treatment too, since we got a letter from his commanding officer saying what a great job he was doing. They send them to the parents if the soldier is not married, otherwise to the spouse, whenever the soldier is doing a good job.
The press doesn't want to portray these letters as common curtesy when the soldier is doing well. My son was an enlisted man, and in the infantry.
This letter was so innocuous that it didn't end up in the fifteen-gallon trashcan at midnight.
>> It seems that this Air Force General believed W was in the Air Force.
What could an Air Force Major General possibly know about the Air Force? :)
Yeah, I think George can take the heat. Can Kerry?
Go Swiftvets!
Gee, the last paragraph of the last document mentions his citations. The ones the DUmmies were claiming he didn't earn and was wearing undeservedly in that ancient picture. FU DU.
I have been waiting for more than a year to see that letter get out to the public. I had a great conversation with President Bush's TI TSgt Onaki last year. Some wonderful stories from him and even more stories from members of his flight G-168, 3724th Basic Military Training Squadron. They are all proud of him as the first enlisted airman to become the Commander-in-Chief. So am I.
Whoa! A commander communicating with one of the troops parents? Simply unheard of!
Sure hope none of those young soldiers ever run for office as Republicans, those letters could come back to haunt them.
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