Now that Peter Jennings has asked the question, I am curious: Was George W. Bush a deserter? The answer appears to be, "Clearly, no." He just lost interest in flying planes for the Air National Guard in early 1972, went AWOL for extraordinarily long lengths of time, and bet (correctly) that the Pentagon would not come after the son of a prominent Texas Republican politician.
There are also overtones in the files that the Texas Air National Guard was very glad to see the back of George W. Bush.
uggabugga: ...27 May '68: Sworn in. After 6 weeks of basic airman training, received a commission as a second lieutenant by means of a 'special appointment' by the commanding officer of his squadron, with the approval of a panel of three senior officers. (Normally required eight full semesters of college ROTC courses or eighteen months of military service or completion of Air Force officer training school. Texas National Guard historian said that he "never heard of that" except for flight surgeons.) Assigned to flight school. (Normally reserved to pilots graduating from ROTC training or Air Force officer training.) 'Fast tracked' into the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, a standby runway alert component of the 143rd Group. (Over those on the existing pilot applicant waiting list.) Trained to fly the missile-equipped supersonic F-102 Delta Dart jet interceptor fighter. Racked up approximately 300 hours of training flight time in the F-102....Year 3. Jul '70: Earned his wings.... Jun '70-May '71. Credited with 46 days of flight duty.
Year 4. Jun '71-May '72. Credited with only 22 flight duty days. (14 days short of the minimum 36 days owed the Guard for that year). Apr '72: Flew for the last time in the cockpit of an F-102. (All the overseas and stateside military services began subjecting a small random sample in their ranks to substance abuse testing for alcohol and drugs.)
Year 5.... 24 May '72: Requested in writing a six-month transfer to an inactive postal Reserve unit in Alabama. (If Bush had been temporarily transferred there, he would not have continued flying until he returned to Texas, because the Alabama unit had no airplanes.) 31 May '72: Transfer request was denied by National Guard Bureau headquarters. (Bush should have returned to his base in Houston and continued with his flying duties. Instead, he remained in Alabama until late in the fall.) Either: 1st Lt. Bush took his mandatory annual flight physical for pilots and failed it for some as-yet undisclosed reason, or he refused to present himself in the first place to an Air Force Flight Surgeon, who were readily available in almost every state. (Release of Bush's military service record would resolve issue.)
1 Aug '72: Suspended and grounded from flying duty on verbal order of the TX 147th Group's Commanding Officer for "his failure to accomplish annual medical examination."... Expensively trained pilots are not casually suspended. There is normally a Flight Inquiry Board. If one had been convened, its three senior officer members would have documented why such a severe action was justified in relation to the country's military objectives at the time.... There is no evidence now in the public domain that a Flight Inquiry Board was convened to deal with Bush's official reclassification to a non-flying, grounded status....
5 Sep '72: Ordered to start serving three months in an active but non-flying administrative Guard unit, the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group in Montgomery, Alabama, for four certain duty days in October and November.... Oct/Nov '72: No official notation in his service record that Bush ever showed up for this assigned duty in Montgomery, Alabama. Bush: "I was there on temporary assignment and fulfilled my weekends at one period of time. I made up some missed weekends. I can't remember what I did, but I wasn't flying because they didn't have the same airplanes. I fulfilled my obligations."... General William Turnipseed and Lt. Col. Kenneth Lott, who commanded the Montgomery, Alabama, base at the time said that Bush never appeared. "To my knowledge, he never showed up," Turnipseed said.
Nov '72-Fall '73: Returned home to Houston Texas. Did not report in person for non-flying duty to his parent Texas 111th Squadron during this whole time.
Year 6. May '73: Ordered to attend nine certain duty days in person during Summer Camp at Ellington AFB between May 22 and June 7. 1st Lt. Bush did not do so. 22 May '73-30 Jul '73: Bush was credited with 35 "gratuitous" inactive Air Force Reserve points -- in other words, non-attendance inactive Reserve credit time. No one in the Texas Air Guard at the time has stepped forward to say they saw Bush in person on a single day between May 22 and July 30, 1973. 1 Oct '73: Prematurely discharged with honors from the Texas Air Guard... without a single... service day for his fifth and sixth years of service.... 26 May '74: Scheduled discharge. Nov '74: Final inactive Reserve discharge with honors.
It sounds to me like the Texas Air National Guard thought he was much more trouble than he was worth as a pilot, seized on his failure to report for his physical to ground him (remarkably quickly). And once he was no longer on flight status, really didn't care at all whether they saw him or not.
Posted by DeLong at January 26, 2004 10:35 AM | TrackBack | | Other weblogs commenting on this post
Everyone seems to agree that it is "clear" that Bush wasn't a deserter. It's not so clear to me, however. I think the relevant fact is whether, at the time he left the service, Bush intended to return. If he did, he was merely AWOL; if he didn't, he was a deserter.
I don't know what his intent was at that time. It seems very possible, however, that he did not intend ever to return, and that pressure from his Dad forced him to return for a few days years later and influenced others to fudge the normal procedures and record.
Posted by: joe on January 26, 2004 05:40 PMIn addition, if Bush "went AWOL for extraordinarily long lengths of time," why is it so "clear" that he was not deserting?
Posted by: joe on January 26, 2004 05:49 PMCan a soldier now beat a desertion charge by claiming that he/she actually intended to return after an "extraordinarily long" length of time? Say on that soldier's 106th birthday?
Posted by: joe on January 26, 2004 05:58 PMPerhaps those National Guardsmen who are slated for assignment to Iraq should consider going AWOL with the "intent" of returning when the War on Iraq is finally over.
Posted by: joe on January 26, 2004 06:09 PMIn support of Joe's remarks, please pay a visit to Orcinus:
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2004_01_18_dneiwert_archive.html#107489673457218778
Orcinus stops a centimeter short of calling it desertion; however, his research reveals a great deal as he has a high forensic standard.
Posted by: James R MacLean on January 26, 2004 06:35 PMPlease also see:
http://users.cis.net/coldfeet/
At a certain point neither draft resisters nor deserters nor AWOLS were treated terribly seriously, because the government didn't want iit to be known how many of them there were.
Posted by: zizka / John Emerson on January 26, 2004 09:33 PMTo me, it seems that it would be an advantageous debate for Dems to wage with Bush -- was Bush a deserter, or merely AWOL? Either way, does he have the moral stature to prance around the deck of an aircraft carrier in front of real fighting men and women?
Posted by: joe on January 27, 2004 10:07 AMIf you do return, even after a decade long absence, they will not file desertion charges. This is, in large part, a matter of regular bureaucracy. It is not a valuable effot to clog the strained Courts Martial system with cases like a 10 year old AWOL. Of this I am quite sure, having spoken to military lawyers about this exact subject.
The aspect of this story that I think is relevant is in part revealed by Molly Ivins, when she says that former Texas Governor John Connoly's son was in Bush's platoon. That former Texas Senator Bentsen's son was in the this platoon. That certain people with charcoal skin were in this platoon IF they happened to play for the Dallas Cowboys.
What was the F-102A? An Interceptor. Designed to sit in Western Europe. It was designed to counter the Soviet TU-4, unveiled at the 1948 Berlin air show. If the Soviets sent their heavy bombers across the Iron Curtain, the Interceptors would be their ASAP, using their missile arsenal to take them down.
Historians often overlook the lack of the substantive North Vietnamese "Heavy Bomber" program, but Ahmed Chalabi swears he saw Ho Chi Minh with them.
Posted by: Josh Narins on January 27, 2004 11:58 AMNote: the military is free to re-prioritize, this is not an endorsement of going AWOL.
Posted by: Josh Narins on January 27, 2004 11:59 AMJosh,
You say that, "If you do return, even after a decade long absence, they will not file desertion charges." I'm curious: Will they give you an honorable discharge?
James R
Thanks for the links. Moore is a real hoot!
Recently I've heard rumours about the Bush family dating back to the 30s that I'm too scared to verify.
The man gets smaller by the minute.
You are so wrong. Anyone now and then with a BS degree qualified for OTS and it was only 90 days. Bush did not have to have ROTC, you are an idiot. Get your facts correct. I had my BS, went to OTS for 90 days and got a commission for Active Duty AF. That required nothing special, then pilot training is a year. You are an idiot if you think anyone had to have ROTC. That sounds like someone that knows nothing about the military. Also back in the 1970's the Guard was a joke as was the reserve. They played no part like today. The AF would not have given him wings or a plane if he was not qualified. I hate to tell you but the F-102 is a SINGLE SEAT so it would be hard to have an instructor. The F-102 was used in TX and Alaska.
Posted by: Air Force Officer on February 5, 2004 08:28 AMUntil Mr. Bush gives a full account, who can deny that he was AWOE - absent without explanation?
Posted by: Lee Wiggins on February 6, 2004 10:07 AMAWOL and desertion are separated by a very fine line. I was charged with desertion in the Army for not reporting to my duty station during transit only after 5 days. Desertion is applicable after being AWOL 30 days. If that doesn't constitute desertion then what does? You can say what you like but look it up, and don't change the rules just because he's the stupid president. The guy's a coward but not a fool, look he's the president, and started two wars. In the annuals of history they'll be singing his praise, wait and see.
Posted by: Burnie on February 8, 2004 09:46 PMWhether "W" was a deserter or AWOL, or his plane had one seat or two seats is a moot point. The issue is he supported the Vietnam war (or didn't have the guts to say he didn't), but he didn't mind leaving it up to others to fight and die in this war.
Defintely not someone who deserves to send others to serve as targets in his self created shooting gallery called Iraq. If he wasn't willing to make the sacrifice, he has no right to ask it of others. I can't believe this Twinkie is probably going to get reelected!
Posted by: Hell on February 13, 2004 01:11 PMYou have a pretty nice blog. English is not my native language but it was please to read your site. From Russia with love :)Sincerely yours..
How can we ever be sure that the Bush family didn't hire a surrogate to serve Dubya's ANG time? Can anyone believe that the Dubya of today could have made the concerted effort and put forth the concentration needed to learn to fly an airplane as complex as the F-102?
Why did he head off to Alabama even before ascertaining that his transfer was approved? (it wasn't)
Because the surrogate become disabled in some manner which would not allow him to continue the "play".
Bush could not report to the same unit so......
Oh, I have personally worked on TF-102 tandom seated trainer airplanes.
Posted by: wwest on March 2, 2004 05:21 PMJust as a solid rock is not shaken by the storm, even so the wise are not affected by praise or blame.
Posted by: Visco Jason on May 2, 2004 05:27 PMBe wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.
Posted by: Rachel Pickworth on May 3, 2004 04:21 AM