Interpretation aside…these are the facts I see in your link:
Gore served 5 months in Vietnam.
He was released from his enlistment early so that he could go to Divinity School. (did he flunk out?)
I think Snopes is great for internet chain letter hoaxes and minor rumor debuking. Somehow I just don’t want to rely on them for a clarification of politics. Snopes being the last word on this issue just doesn’t cut it with me.
What about this part?
I guess the fact that he couldn’t have served a year any which way you cut it just doesn’t matter when it comes time to bash him eh?
Freedom2: There is a lot of stuff on the net about both Bush/Clinton and Gore. There are allegations out there that allege Clinton dodged the draft.
Well, here at the Straight Dope we try to have higher standards than “allegations on the net”! 
Here are excerpts from the Clinton biography, First in his Class:
So the real story seems to be that, although Clinton certainly pulled all the strings he could to obtain deferments (as did many other potential draftees, including Quayle and Dubya), he did nothing illegal to avoid the draft. In fact, he even voluntarily took the risk (although a much smaller risk than previously) of being drafted after he got the deferment, by renouncing the deferment and asking to be reclassified A-1.
Bottom line: Clinton did not take a particularly consistent or principled course of action with respect to military service. But if he’s to be called a “draft dodger”, then so are Quayle and Bush Jr.
*Clinton removed any stigma of NO military service. *
Actually, only 29 of our presidents have done any military service at all.
David B said:
Because its still not PC, David. There are a ton of vetern’s orgs out there that would look at any excuse unfavorably and although I suspect (IMHO) that a large percentage of these kind of groups tend to be leaning more Republican, I would not be surprised if a goodly number from both sides of the aisle have shied away from the indiscresions of their youth.
This strikes me as being rather odd. There are plenty of Bush apologists in the media who have written consistently in his defense since his announced candidacy. I read their columns often.
Why is the first reasonable explanation for Bush’s absence that I have ever heard espoused by someone on an internet message board? Sam Stone cannot have been the first person to dream this excuse up.
And Sam, as reasonable as it sounds, can you demonstrate your authority on this subject sufficiently for me to believe you on faith? It seems that you do know about US military aircraft, but the unwritten practices of the Air Guard seem a bit more recherche.
MR
Kimstu
OOOOoooooo… What an objective breath of fresh air his biography is…
From the Amazon.com book reviews…
Anybody who spends time creating a story to shore up the “I didn’t inhale line” loses any claim to objectivity.
However…even they say…
It seems to me that Clinton is a fairly polarizing figure. I think Clinton is the type of subject that people see in completely different ways. Some people see this guy as a hero, some see him as a traitor to the country. (I think he is neither)
But…History will show him coming into office in '92 with the Democrats in control of the house and the Senate, and leaving the party shattered in 2000.
29? So approx 70% of our presidents were in the military. I had to all the way back to 1945 to Roosevelt to find the last president without service. Almost half a century. I think that counts as a trend. There were 9 straight Presidents that had military service. I think it is fair to say that people took a person’s military service record much more seriously 15 years ago than they do today.
I remember when Clinton was elected in '92. His service record WAS an issue. You don’t hear anything about Bush or Gore’s records in the main stream media today. It just simply is not an issue anymore.
Freedom2 said:
OK, great. Do you have any evidence that anything snopes said is incorrect? Or should we just ignore it 'cus you don’t like his conclusion?
Maeglin: I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but the info I gave was pretty much the Bush Campaign explanation.
From The Washington Post
So here’s what they say happened: Bush asks to be transferred to Alabama to help work on a political campaign for Senator Blount. The Guard transfers him. He gets to Alabama, and discovers that he is not trained to fly any of the aircraft they have. He is put on ‘paper shuffling duty’. While there, his aviation medical expires, canceling his flight status.
Bush’s claim is that the Commander does not recall him because Bush was not on flight duty, and therefore doesn’t show up in the records for active pilots. Nor would he appear on the commander’s ‘Radar Scope’ because he wasn’t actively flying. He was just another paper pusher on a large base.
While researching this, I came across a couple of the websites claiming that Bush skipped his service. The main claim is that he was a serious alcoholic or drug abuser. They claim that he ‘refused’ to take his physical because it would have shown traces of drugs or alcohol. This is a ludicrous claim. First, all Bush would have had to do was stop drinking and taking drugs for a couple of days. It wasn’t like these were on-the-spot physicals without warning. Second, the reason for his not taking the physical is much easier to understand: He was pulling duty where there were no airplanes to fly, in a place with a shortage of flight surgeons, and saw no reason to take the flight physical. End of story.
Of course Bush may well have been on a one-year bender this whole time. I have no evidence for that. What I do know is that the evidence that he shirked his guard duties is pretty shallow, and involves believing in a large conspiracy of Guard Officers, since in fact Bush was promoted in 1972 and was given an honorable discharge in 1973. The Colonel in Alabama may not remember seeing him, but there is absolutely no record of any disciplinary action against Bush, and plenty of evidence that he was a decent Aviator and Guardsman.
We should all give this whole Vietnam thing a rest.
Look: Just about every kid back then did what he could to stay out of Vietnam. Gore and Bush both appear to have done their best to avoid being grunts in the mud, but I probably would have to. And what they both did appears to be legal.
Gore actually wound up in Vietnam as a journalist. When he was sent there, he could have wound up in combat. There were a number of journalists killed in Vietnam. So give the guy some credit for that.
Bush wound up in a guard unit flying dangerous fighters. He actually volunteered to go to Vietnam and was turned down for lack of flight time. His unit was on active rotation status and could have been sent to Vietnam at any time.
I brought this up in another thread, but I want to point out again that flying an F-102 is not exactly a ‘cushy safe job’. These fighters were very dangerous, and more people died in accidents in them than were killed in combat. In fact, Bush’s chance of being killed in the Guard at home was probably higher than the chance of his being killed as a random draftee. Sure would have been a lot more fun, though.
I just looked at the accident stats from the DoD. Since 1979, 3,877 Air Force personnel have been killed in accidents. That’s over twice as many as were killed in Vietnam.
Thank you for providing a sense of perspective here, Sam. As for most people arguing about who did what to get out of getting killed in Vietnam, if you really expected people to vote based on that, McCain would have won in a landslide. Rather, it’s just a way of badmouthing the candidate you dislike.
Let me just add that the military draft was not administered by Almighty God but by the same US government that the right-wingers are so fond of bashing. And in case you hadn’t heard, the draft was abolished in 1973, just a few years after these guys went through what they did. Vietnam wasn’t World War II. Why are we being so ridiculously selective about how we remember it? The overwhelming consensus is that the country made a huge mistake in getting involved in Vietnam, but a guy who managed to avoid being victimized by that tragic historical event is a rat if and only if he later runs for president.
Freedom2, I didn’t say that First in his Class is an objective biography. But I have no evidence for disbelieving the detailed and circumstantial statements it makes about the specifics of Clinton’s experience with the draft, or its conclusion that he did not evade the draft illegally (and therefore is not a draft dodger). If you have any such evidence, I’d like to see it.
You said: I remember when Clinton was elected in '92. His service record WAS an issue. You don’t hear anything about Bush or Gore’s records in the main stream media today. It just simply is not an issue anymore.
What about the Washington Post article cited just a few posts after yours, and the one that inspired the OP?
Well, first of all, I don’t think we should count Reagan. Sure, he wore a uniform and had a rank, but does spending the entire war making movies really count as “military service”? He was hardly “in the military” the way JFK or Bush Sr. were in the military. Hell, he had to become President to risk being shot at.
Also, maybe the “half century” thing is accounted for by the fact that, from 1941-1974, we were pretty consistently involved in overseas military conflicts, meaning there were more people in the military then anyway; and there was also an active conscription, meaning people served whether they wanted to or not? I think maybe both of those facts may just play into it.
Besides, the US constitution, holy of holies, doesn’t require the president to have served in the military, does it?
pldennison
He was either in, our he wasn’t. My point was that a politician needed to have his ass covered on the military issue up until Clinton. Reagan was a Captain, his ass was covered.
I agree. That just adds a little meat to my arguement that up until Clinton you had to have political cover on the military issue.
Kimstu
Just becasue there was an editorial in the Washington Post does not mean this is an issue in the election. Social Security, Gun Control, Medicare, Tax Cuts etc… are ISSUES in this campaign. Clinton’s military service was an issue in '92.
No problems there. I will from now on refer to Clinton as a Draft Eluder.
I think people here are misinterpreting where I coming from, so here is my position:
Since President Roosevelt every politician who wanted to be President needed to have “POLITICAL COVER” on the military issue. IOW, they needed to have SOME type of military service. Clinton shattered this requirement. Not only did he not serve in the military, but he ELUDED service and protested the war. By Clinton being elected, it helped erase the stigma of no military service from the national political scene. This has helped the likes of Bush and Gore, both of whom were arguably (by the other side) the beneficiary of preferential treatment. The Vietnam War sucked, and many people tried to find ways around being an infrantry soldier on the ground in Vietnam.
I am making no moral judgements of Clinton, Bush or Gore here. I do however, stand by my assertion that Clinton smashed down a perceived barrier to being President.
Hey, those movies can be hell to make. 
I think Freedom’s point was “he had military ‘experience’”, and that it wasn’t until Clinton came along that people stopped giving a hoot about whether or not a candidate had joined up or not.
"The Boston Globe reported Monday that a group of Vietnam veterans in Alabama have offered a $3,500 reward for anyone who can verify Bush’s claim that he performed service at a Montgomery unit in 1972, when Bush was in Alabama working on a political campaign.
So far, the Globe reported, no one has come forward.
There are no records of Bush’s service and the commanding officer of the unit Bush was assigned to told the newspaper that he never saw him. Bush was also suspended from flight duty during this period for not taking his annual flight physical.
A Bush campaign spokesman acknowledged to the Globe that he knows of no witnesses who can verify that Bush attended the drills.
Advertisement
However, the Globe also quoted Major Thomas A. Deall of the Air Reserve Personnel Center that officials there believe, after looking at Bush’s records, that he did meet minimum drill requirements before his discharge.
Bush has declined the Globe’s requests for an interview on the subject."
Declined requests for an interview, eh? Gosh, I wonder why…
That story also has a link to the Boston Globe story.
[Edited by David B on 11-01-2000 at 08:28 AM]
I just don’t get it. It’s a real pity that this is happening too late to make a real difference.
Ditto Larry Flynt’s sword affidavits regarding Bush’s supposed abortion.
MR
Sword Affidavits? Band name, anyone?
Sworn
David, I’m surprised at you. You’re actually buying into what amounts to a conspiracy theory, on the evidence of a partison group that can’t find anyone who specifically remembers Bush?
We have as alternate evidence the fact that Bush was given an honorary discharge, was promoted a grade during this period, and that the actual military people involved believe that he served out his term properly.
As for not completing his flight medical, he was stationed on a base that did not have any aircraft that he could fly. There was no reason to maintain his flying status, and there were no aviation medical examiners readily available. So he let his medical lapse. This would have ‘suspended’ him from flight duty, but this is not in any way a punishment or a negative mark. It’s just an administrative note that says Pilot Bush may not sign out aircraft until his medical is complete.
This story got started because someone interviewed the man who was base commander when Bush was there, and the guy said he had no recollection of him. But there’s an easy explanation for this: Bush was not on flying status, so he was given make-work assignments that pushed him into the background, whereas the Commander thought it was funny that he couldn’t remember Bush because he could remember all his other pilots. He apparently didn’t realize that Bush was not a pilot at the time.
The most likely scenario here is that Bush showed up, they had little for him to do, and they simply said, “Stay out of our way and try and make yourself useful.” The problem was that Bush was trained as an F-102 pilot, but there were none to fly at his new base and it was not worth re-training him on the new jets because he only had a short time of enlistment left. So he wouldn’t have been trained for anything other than monkey-work.
Bush probably responded by showing up a couple of times, not finding much to do, and then skipping. No one would have cared because he was a short-termer at this time, and earlier in his career he racked up far more duty hours than was required, because of his training and flying of F-102’s.
Y’know, you guys on the left have been rolling your eyes over all the conspiracy theorists that came out of the woodwork against Clinton, but now you’re engaging in the same thing. Apply a little critical thinking, will you?