The Washington Times
Op-ed
February 10, 2004
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 2˝ 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.5Richmond Times-Dispatch
Ex-pilot says Bush put in for Vietnam
Bush volunteered for combat, was rejected, ex-guardsman says
BY PETER BACQUE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Feb 13, 2004
A former senior Virginia Air National Guard commander, who served with George W. Bush in the Texas Air Guard, says Bush volunteered for Vietnam combat service but was turned down because he did not have the required flight experience.
William J. Campenni, a retired Air Guard colonel, also said absences such as Bush's from his unit were common in the Air Guard during the period of Bush's service and still are.
He and Bush were young lieutenants and pilots in the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron of the Texas Air Guard from 1970 to 1971, Campenni said, serving under the same flight and squadron commanders, both of whom are now dead.
Campenni, 63, lives in Herndon and has participated in Republican Party politics in Northern Virginia. He retired as an Air Force pilot in 1998, last flying with the 192nd Fighter Wing based at Richmond International Airport.
According to Campenni, Bush inquired about participating in a volunteer program called Palace Alert that used Air National Guard pilots flying in the F-102 Delta Dagger interceptor jet in Vietnam.
The Air Guard advised Bush he did not have the desired 500 hours of flight time as a pilot to qualify for Palace Alert duty, and, in any event, the program was winding down and not accepting more volunteers.
"While we were not part of the same social circle outside the base," Campenni said in a letter to The Washington Times published this week, "we were in the same fraternity of fighter pilots, and proudly wore the same squadron patch."
He said a check of the 1970-71 records of the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron "and any other [Air National Guard] squadron" would show "other pilots excused for career obligations and conflicts."
Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard at Ellington Air Force Base in May 1968. In May 1972, records show he received permission to perform nonflying duties in Alabama.
"[Excuses] 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," said Campenni, who spent 33 years in the Air National Guards of three states as his career as an aerospace engineer took him around the country.
Freeing the then-lieutenant from his Texas duties in 1972 was helped, Campenni said, because the Houston unit was changing from an operational fighter squadron to a training squadron with a new airplane, the F-101 Voodoo.
The mission switch "required that more pilots be available for full-time instructor duty rather than part-time, traditional reservists with outside employment," he said. Bush was a part-time Guard member, as most Guard airmen are.
"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," Campenni said.
"Any pilot could have left the Air Force or the Air Guard with ease after 1972 before his commitment was up," he said, "because there just wasn't room for all of them anymore."
Bush, who was working on a political campaign in Alabama, was assigned temporarily to a unit in Montgomery, Ala. Democrats have charged there is no proof that Bush showed up for Air Guard duty there.
During the Vietnam War era, many men saw joining the National Guard as a means of avoiding combat duty. American political leaders avoided mobilizing the hometown units for duty in the Southeast Asian war.
"There was one big exception to this abusive use of the Guard to avoid the draft," Campenni said, "and that was for those who wanted to fly, as pilots or crew members."
Air Guard pilot duty required up to 2˝ years of active-duty service for training, he said. Draftees served for two years, overwhelmingly in the Army.
Air National Guard units began flying supply missions in Vietnam in 1965, and the Air Guard was mobilized twice during the Vietnam War. Guard aviators in five squadrons flying the F-100 Super Sabre fighter-bomber were called up for duty in Vietnam in 1968.
"Avoiding service?" Campenni said. "Yeah, tell that to those guys."
Simply flying tactical military aircraft is dangerous, he said.
"Six of those with whom I served in those years never made their 30th birthdays because they died in crashes flying air-defense missions" in the United States, Campenni said.
"Our Texas [Air National Guard] unit lost several planes right there in Houston during Lt. Bush's tenure, with fatalities," he said.
"Just strapping on one of those obsolescing F-102s was risking one's life."
Contact Peter Bacque at (804) 649-6813 or pbacque@timesdispatch.comThe Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com
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Bush's drills with the Alabama Guard confirmed
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published February 11, 2004
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The White House yesterday released military records that it said demonstrate conclusively that President Bush completed the required drills leading to an honorable discharge from the Texas Air National Guard in 1973.
"These documents clearly show that the president fulfilled his duties," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan as he waved copies of smudgy, 31-year-old pay and accreditation records stored on microfilm in a U.S. government military archives in Colorado.
The president had been dogged by accusations that he did not fulfill make-up requirements for missed Guard drills, and an officer of the Alabama Air National Guard, where the make-up drills were scheduled, said he did not remember Mr. Bush.
But further confirmation was supplied yesterday by a woman who dated the young George W. Bush in 1972 who says she distinctly remembers the young pilot visiting Montgomery that year to fulfill his Air National Guard commitment.
Emily Marks Curtis told The Times that she and Mr. Bush met in the summer of 1972 when he went to Montgomery from Texas to work in the U.S. Senate campaign of Winton Blount, a Bush family friend. She said the two became good friends.
After that election, she said, Mr. Bush returned to Texas. A few weeks later, he telephoned to say he was returning to Montgomery to complete drilling days at an Alabama squadron to which he had been transferred that year.
It has been standard procedure for many years for National Guard units to excuse members from scheduled drills for employment reasons, with the stipulation that missed drill time be made up.
"He called to tell me he was coming back to finish up his National Guard duty," said Mrs. Curtis, who now lives in New Orleans. "I can say categorically he was there, and that's why he came back."
She said that he rented an apartment for a two-week stay and that she met him for dinner several times.
"I didn't see him go to work. I didn't see him come home from work," she said. "He told me that was why he was in Montgomery. There is no other reason why he would come back to Montgomery."
At the White House yesterday, Mr. McClellan criticized Democrats who have raised an issue that the president thought was settled during his days as Texas governor and in the 2000 presidential race.
"There are some out there that were making outrageous, baseless accusations," the press secretary said. "It was a shame that they brought it up four years ago. It was a shame that they brought it up again this year."
When a television reporter accused Mr. McClellan of not answering his questions, the usually stoic Mr. McClellan responded tartly: "I'm sorry, John, but, you know, this is an important issue that some chose to raise in the context of an election year. And the facts are important for people to know. And if you don't want to know the facts, that's fine, but I want to share the facts with you."
The records show that Mr. Bush earned sufficient drilling points to earn an honorable discharge. They also show he drilled two days in October 1972 and four days in November 1972 when he had transferred to the Alabama Guard unit.
Mr. Bush's Air National Guard record resurfaced as a campaign issues after Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAullife accused the president of "being AWOL" during the Vietnam War.
Mr. McAullife, 47, was too young to be drafted when mandatory service was abolished in 1974, has not served in the military.
Republicans accuse Mr. McAullife of raising the issue now to contrast Mr. Bush's Guard service with Sen. John Kerry's service as a Navy lieutenant in Vietnam. Mr. Kerry, the Democratic presidential front-runner, has made his military service a prime theme in his stump speeches and TV ads.
Mr. McAullife kept up the attack yesterday, saying questions remain.
"We also still do not know why the president's superiors filed a report saying they were unable to evaluate his performance for that year because he had not been present to be evaluated," he said. "That report was filed on the very day these documents allege he was reporting for duty."
Mr. Bush's former commander, now dead, wrote that he could not judge the pilot's performance for 1972 and 1973. However, others who served with Mr. Bush remember him as "one of our best pilots."
In the 1992 campaign, Mr. Kerry, who has equated Mr. Bush's National Guard service to running away to Canada, took to the Senate floor to denounce Republicans who questioned candidate Bill Clinton's draft record. Mr. Kerry said it was time to stop re-examining how people did or did not serve during the Vietnam War. Mr. Clinton has never served in the military. As a university student, Mr. Clinton wrote a letter to the commander of the Reserve Officers Training Corps at the University of Arkansas, expressing a "loathing" for the military.
Mr. Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard in May 1968 after graduating from Yale. He went through initial flight training and then qualified on the F-102, an aging jet fighter interceptor, regarded as a particularly difficult plane to fly that would be phased out in the coming years.
He drilled at the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, Texas Air National Guard, based at Ellington Air Force Base near Houston, accumulating scores of flying hours as his unit practiced intercepting Russian jets over the Gulf of Mexico.
William Campenni, a retired Guard pilot, served with Mr. Bush in the 111th. He remembers a training flight over the Gulf during which the future president mimicked a Soviet bomber.
"We crashed a couple of guys while George was down there," said Mr. Campenni, who now runs an engineering consulting business in Herndon. "In those days, we were using obsolete airplanes in the Guard. That was hazardous work. We were losing people."
In 1972, Mr. Bush left Texas to work on the Senate campaign and transferred to a squadron in the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing in Montgomery. He apparently missed drills during the election campaign, and that is why he returned later in November.
He would have held a desk job at the 187th because he was not qualified on the wing's reconnaissance jets. "It's quite common for a pilot and other Guard members to go to another unit in another state," Mr. Campenni said. "We can 'pull drills' there and get credit for your duty in your state."
Mr. Bush left the Guard six months early to attend Harvard business school and was honorably discharged in October 1973.
Many pilots resigned from the Guard before completing their enlistment term in those years. President Nixon was withdrawing thousands of troops from Vietnam, delivering a surplus of pilots to the active Air Force and the Air Guard.
•Jerry Seper contributed to this report.Sorry, Democrats: Guard Officer Saw 'Very Dedicated' Bush 'Each Drill Period'
NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, Feb. 13, 2004
A retired Alabama Air National Guard officer said Friday that he remembered George W. Bush showing up for duty in Alabama in 1972, reading safety magazines and flight manuals in an office as he performed his weekend obligations.
"I saw him each drill period," retired Lt. Col. John "Bill" Calhoun said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from Daytona Beach, Fla., where he is preparing to watch this weekend's big NASCAR race.
"He was very aggressive about doing his duty there. He never complained about it. ... He was very dedicated to what he was doing in the Guard. He showed up on time, and he left at the end of the day."
Calhoun, whose name was supplied to the AP by a Republican close to Bush, is the first member of the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group to recall Bush distinctly at the Alabama base in the period of 1972-1973. He was the unit's flight safety officer.
The 69-year-old president of an Atlanta insulation company said Bush showed up for work at Dannelly Air National Guard Base for drills on at least six occasions. Bush and Calhoun had been trained as fighter pilots, and Calhoun said the two would swap "war stories" and even eat lunch together on base.
Calhoun is named in 187th unit rosters obtained by the AP as serving under the deputy commander of operations plans. Bush was in Alabama on non-flying status.
"He sat in my office most of the time. He would read," Calhoun said. "He had your training manuals from your aircraft he was flying. He'd study those some. He'd read safety magazines, which is a common thing for pilots."
Democrats have asked for proof that Bush, then a 1st lieutenant with the Texas Air National Guard, turned up for duty in Alabama, where Bush had asked to be assigned while he worked on the U.S. Senate campaign of family friend Winton "Red" Blount.
The White House released pay and medical records this week.
The 187th's former commander, retired Brig. Gen. William Turnipseed, has said he doesn't remember Bush turning up on base, and more than a dozen members of the 800-person unit, including its commander, told The Associated Press this week they had no recollection of Bush. Critics have made much of the fact that the White House had not produced anyone who could remember seeing Bush there.
Calhoun said he contacted Texas GOP leaders with his story in 2000 when the issue was raised just before the November election.
But if Dems Repeat a Lie Often Enough ...
"I got on the phone and got information and called Austin, Texas, and talked to the Republican campaign. They said I was talking to the campaign manager," he said. "I told him my story and said I would be glad to provide information to that effect. At that time they said ... the story is not true. And we don't think it's got enough weight to stay out as a story.' And they said, 'But if it does we'll call you back.' And I never heard from them again."
Last week Calhoun sent an e-mail to the White House offering to tell his story. "I got a response back, one of those automatic responses," he said. It wasn't until his wife contacted Georgia GOP officials that Calhoun's name surfaced.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Friday that the White House was not making any effort to locate people who might have served with Bush. He accused reporters of trying to raise new lines of questioning, beyond whether Bush served in Alabama.
Critics have suggested that Bush used his family connections to get the safe Guard assignment ahead of thousands of others. But Calhoun said Bush never mentioned his congressman father while they sat together at Dannelly.
"I knew he was working in the senatorial campaign, and I asked him if he was going to be a politician," said Calhoun, a staunch Republican. "And he said: 'I don't know. Probably.'"
Calhoun has not made any donations to Bush this election season or during the 2000 season, according to campaign finance records.