Texas Air National Guard - A Refuge for the Privileged

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24423-2004Feb8.html

The earnest, fresh-faced spokesmen for the White House expressed shock at the view that the National Guard was ever made up of draft dodgers {"Bush's Military Record Defended," news story, Feb. 4}.

However, any man who was of draft age during the Cold War, and particularly during Vietnam, knows that the Guard was a refuge from the rice paddies for the well-connected.

As the Web site for the 49th Armored Division (Texas National Guard) delicately puts it: "Following World War II, the draft motivated enlistments through 1972; young men joined the guard to avoid interruption of their daily life for active duty."

The waiting list was measured in years. To bypass the waiting list, not only in Texas but in almost every Guard unit in the country, required "pull." George W. Bush's Air National Guard unit included the sons of Democratic Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, Republican Sen. John Tower and several Dallas Cowboys.

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