The site linked to in the OP doesn’t seem to mention Bush Sr. WWII service?
In any case, while I don’t feel like holding 30-year-old mistakes against someone, and while I don’t think military service is a requirement for making the decision to go to war, I do have to roll my eyes everytime someone brings up Clinton’s protests in England. Even if you think Clinton was wrong for doing so, why should it be any worse than what Dubya did? And why let Dubya’s past be forgiven and Clinton’s not?
If don’t see how you were contradicting my post, Airman Doors, USAF. I’m not saying that anything was illegal nor that those who went didn’t have a choice. I’m saying they didn’t volunteer. No one asked them, any of them, if they wanted to go t Iraq or not. If anyone bellyached I’m sure they were just told “Shut up and soldier, soldier.” It’s not the same drafting civilians by any means but I do see a distinction there.
I trust you followed that link to find the John Engler “2 pounds overweight” draft deferment. It really makes you think about the people in power and how they just might have “weaseled out” when it was THEIR turn to put their money where their mouth was so to speak.
I will admit that the sites that mention “who served vs who didn’t” are definitely NOT right wing. But isn’t it funny how the Conservitives, the Republicans, the well-off, (okay - the RICH BASTARDS), have the power to make sure their kids DON’T get put in harm’s way? Makes you think doesn’t it? It’s almost as if we were living in just an “upper class” and “lower class” society.
I don’t know which is more embarassing: George W. Bush enlisting in the Texas Air National Guard to avoid serving in Vietnam, or George W. Bush bypassing the Guard’s 100,000-name waiting list to get admittance ahead of all the other folks who were there first.
I want this country governed by civilians. The military exists to serve the people, not the other way around, and especially today when there is no draft and no need for one, it simply is not everyone’s duty to serve in the armed forces.
That’s today, Apos. When George W. Bush had to make the decision whether to serve in Vietnam or find a way out of it, there was a draft. And George W. Bush claims to belong to a political tradition (not to mention a family tradition) which does not question the state’s legitimate authority to draft troops, and which places a high premium on the honor of a man serving his country in battle. I don’t think it’s unfair to judge his moral character by the standards of that tradition, even if that means judging him more harshly than other young men of the time who openly espoused very different values, and who dodged the draft in their own ways.
Just one comment on terminology: it is not incorrect to say that George W. Bush entered “the reserves” as opposed to active duty.
There is a “reserve component” and an “active component.” The reserve component includes the national guard, a state-controlled milita with fifty-one state adjutant generals reporting through the Chief, National Guard Bureau for federal issues, and answering to their state governors for state issues.
It also includes the federal reserve, which are federally controlled and funded units reporting through regional ARCOMs.
So Mr. Bush can be said to have joined the reserves, but not the Reserve - if that’s any clearer.
I do not believe that one needs to have been in the military in order to support war. This is like saying that people supporting the development of vaccines have to go work on them themselves. The President’s decisions should be judged by their value, and not by their interactions with the person.
Anyway, it is questionable whether Bush would have made the same decision now. Considering that there is a decades-wide gap between his supposedly dodging service and his support for the Iraq war, it is a bit unfair to expect decades of his life to match up now. Rather like accusing a parent of hypocrisy when he spanks his child when he tried to avoid spanking when he was a child.
The OP is missing one very important thing in this so-called debate: it is absolutely irrelevant if the civilian office-holders of our civilian government ever served in the military.
Why get snarky about student deferments? It was a valid reason to not be drafted during the VietNam era. I presume the student deferment was developed because there was deemed to be a national interest in not interrupting students’ higher education.
True, some students felt so patriotic they dropped out of college to volunteer. Today we can look back and admire them for that (although personally, I respect equally the natural tendency towards self-preservation. It’s not just evolutionarily sensible, it’s downright intelligent). But I think students who stayed in school should hardly be considered unpatriotic chickenshits. They were doing what their government expected them to do.
Monty,
The debate becomes EXTREMELY relevant when the draft was in effect. To me it seems a bit shady that someone like John Ashcroft got out of military service by claiming his job was “vital” to the national interest - teaching law. I always thought the “vital” jobs were working in defense palnts, designing weapons, etc. As I stated previously, if you knew the “right” people, they could exert enough influenece on your local draft board so they would leave you alone.
So, at least when the draft is in effect, it is a VERY good judge of character to see how our CIVILIAN leaders faced up to (or weaseled out of) their MILITARY obligations.
Hold on a second. I’m too young to have fought in the Vietnam War, or even to remember it (I was born in 1975), but I remember my parents (and most people who would have been in their 20s when Vietnam went on) telling me that Vietnam was complicated, and a lot of people decided our being there was immoral, and a lot of people managed to get around serving in the military, etc. So, why should you be surprised that a lot of Republican baby boomers managed not to serve? And why all the moral outrage all of sudden?
I mean, nobody here would make an ad homenim attack against their opponents based on an issue they’ve never cared about before, right? I can’t see anyone here doing that…that would just be wrong.
And perhaps (as in “it absolutely is”) this comment of yours is just crap. For one thing, the President of the United States of America is, in fact and by law (read the Constitution), the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. For another, he was wearing a flight suit designed for the particulars of flight of the aircraft in which he was a passenger.
wolf: Your argument does not pass muster. What you think ought to be “of national interest” and what actually are considered so by the laws in effect at the time are obviously two different things. Next reason your argument doesn’t pass muster is that this country has a civilian government in charge of its military. Trying to play up someone’s military service or lack thereof in the realm of politics is nothing but an ad homenim attack. Finally, you’ve made an assertion without a factual basis provided. Last I checked, this thread wasn’t IMHO.
The above is of course a complete high-jack of this thread. The President of the United States can dress up as the San Diego Chicken if he wants. That does not make him a bird.
The President’s stunt with the aircraft carrier landing and the flight suit and the helmet was, as any rational person must recognize, pure theater. Like Dukakus’s ride in the tank, it had nothing to do with substance and every thing to do with show business and pretence. It has energized the people who think Mr. Bush is nearly God like and confirmed the cynical in their view that the man is a phony.
The real point, as I see it, is whether it is appropriate for a person to shirk duty in youth and claim the mantle of power in maturity. This is all confused and complicated by the fact that the draft during Vietnam was full of exemptions and exceptions which nearly invited and approved evasion and avoidance and because lots of people thought the war was a mistake, an immoral exercise, or just something they did not want to participate in. To not have served is no disqualification from office but it is an indicator of what a person’s priorities were and probably are and thus a marker of character. What I say is that a man who wants to serve the country in high office now better be prepared to have a good explanation for why he did not serve the country in humble office then.
There was a little red hen who wanted to make some bread. Who will help me plow the ground, asked the little red hen….