About the good old boy who says he saw Bush in Alabama - Calhoun

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040223-590683-2,00.html

<snip>So Did Bush Report for Duty in Alabama or Not?

Depends on whom you believe. During his Meet the Press appearance, Bush twice told Russert that he reported for duty in Alabama. But for most of last week (and for much of the past four years), it has been difficult to find anyone who recalls seeing Bush at Dannelly Field. (At one point in 2000, 10 Vietnam veterans offered a $1,000 reward to anyone who could prove he saw Bush on duty during 1972.) Even Bush had trouble explaining his job at Dannelly, saying he did "administrative work." John B. Calhoun, an Atlanta resident who served for 28 years in the Air Force and the Alabama Guard, told TIME he clearly remembers Bush reporting for duty on weekends starting in the summer of 1972, apparently before Bush officially requested reassignment there. Calhoun explained that Bush signed into his office and mainly read training manuals and safety magazines, signing out at the end of each drilling day. Bush kept a low profile, Calhoun said, and sometimes ate lunch with Calhoun in the snack bar.

But there are some discrepancies in Calhoun's account: he claimed Bush turned up more often than was indicated in Bush's official pay records for the period. And many other veterans of the 187th do not recall seeing Bush on base. Paul Bishop, a retired Air Force colonel who says he never missed a weekend drill in 27 years with the 187th, told TIME the physical layout of the unit's hangar made it "virtually impossible" for Bush to have met with Calhoun and for none of the unit's 800 other reservists to have seen him. "Fighter pilots, and that's what we are," says Bishop, "have situational awareness. They know everything about their environment, whether it's an enemy plane creeping up or a stranger in their hangar."

This much is known: for the first three years while he was in Texas, Bush had no trouble racking up hundreds of points each year, far in excess of what was required. He logged more than 600 hours of flying time and received glowing evaluations from his superiors. But in 1972, when he moved to Alabama, his points plunged. He earned only 41 points but was awarded the standard 15 "gratuitous" points from Texas Air Guard Major Rufus Martin for being a member in good standing—just enough to meet his obligation.

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[Terwilliger]

1. The AWOL sonofabitch was a draft-dodger

He has ZERO credibility. In fact, the only credibility George W. Bush has is the credibility the "liberal" media want to bestow on him.

[Frances]

2. The two sides haven't stopped arguing about the war that

ended 30 years ago.

I think the point is that it's OK for people who actually do the fighting to question those who only pretended to be fighting.

I wonder if one of the main reasons Clark joined Kerry is that they really are "a band of brothers." Both were in real combat in Vietnam.

A question: I know that Powell was in Vietnam. But did he ever save anyone's life while he was there? Was he wounded?

[demgrrrll]

3. Marshall at TPM has a quote that Bush's approval for transfer

to the unit was not given until September of 1972 which was
months after Calhoun "remembers" seeing him there.

[buycitgo]

4. so hasn't somebody asked that weasel to name ONE SINGLE person

that HE remembers serving with, drinking with, hanging out with, whatever you care to call it?

mr CHEERLEADER, Mr. sociable, mr. good time charlie can't come up with ONE name himself?

how difficult is THAT to swallow?

he's had TWELVE YEARS to cover his bases on this one, and he can't come up with ONE NAME on his own, much less having these jackasses step up who can't even get their LIES straight?

[Karenina]

6. Interesting, eh?

Well, these folks seem to remember having seen him...

http://www.southerner.net/blog/awolbush.html

George W. Bush's Lost Year in 1972 Alabama

By Glynn Wilson
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Feb. 2 (PS) — The result of an investigation into George W. Bush's lost year in 1972 reveals a cocky privileged son who used his family connections to avoid military service in Vietnam and spend seven months in Alabama partying. He clearly skipped out on National Guard duty and avoided a mandatory drug test, all while learning the politics of "dirty tricks," deception...

<snip>

Privileged Son

Those who encountered Bush in Alabama remember him as an affable social drinker who acted younger than his 26 years. Referred to as George Bush, Jr. by newspapers in those days, sources say he also tended to show up late every day, around noon or one, at Blount's campaign headquarters in Montgomery. They say Bush would prop his cowboy boots on a desk and brag about how much he drank the night before.

They also remember Bush's stories about how the New Haven, Connecticut police always let him go, after he told them his name, when they stopped him "all the time" for driving drunk as a student at Yale in the late 1960s. Bush told this story to others working in the campaign "what seemed like a hundred times," says Red Blount's nephew C. Murphy Archibald, now an attorney in Charlotte, N.C., who also worked on the Blount campaign and said he had "vivid memories" of that time.
"He would laugh uproariously as though there was something funny about this. To me, that was pretty memorable, because here he is, a number of years out of college, talking about this to people he doesn't know," Archibald said. "He just struck me as a guy who really had an idea of himself as very much a child of privilege, that he wasn't operating by the same rules."

<snip>


Many of those who came into close contact with Bush say he liked to drink beer and Jim Beam whiskey, and to eat fist-fulls of peanuts, and Executive burgers, at the Cloverdale Grill. They also say he liked to sneak out back for a joint of marijuana or into the head for a line of cocaine...

[Silverhair]

7. Powell was over there VERY early in the war, in 1963.

He was an adviser to ARVN (Army Republic of Viet Nam) troops, and was usually the only American with them. He saw a lot of combat with them, and was wounded when he stepped on a punji stick. That ended his direct combat involvement. His early combat duty had put him on an Army fast track for advancement, and he has staff duties after that.

[Lefty48197]

5. Two people claim to have seen Bush Jr. in uniform in Alabama

both are now Republicam campaign operatives. Coincidence? I think not.