If you were a Fighter pilot, would you give it up to Party?

[napi21]

I was just listening to Ed Schultz, and someone said "I can't believe shrub was a fighter pilot and just gave it up!" I can't either!!! I've know a few, and although you can say a lot of things about them (they're usually arrogant & egotistic), they are very proud of what they do! I've never met even one who would just give that up and walk away.

I'm trying to figure out why shrub did just that???

[unblock]

1. it's the pause that refreshes in the corridors of power

[Vickers]

9. I miss Joe Strummer

:(

[mandyky]

2. shrub never wanted to be a fighter pilot

he just joined the TANG to avoid Vietnam. REAL pilots do all sorts of crazy things to remain pilots - just watch a few episodes of JAG!! LOL

[wurzel]

3. How do we know he was a 'fighter pilot'? What do we trust?

All we really know is he got out of the Guard the same way he got in.

[Fridays Child]

4. It depends. Am I the dissipated, alcoholic spawn of semi-reptilians?

Then I would have to say yes.

[LoZoccolo]

5. Yo. Being a fighter pilot /is/ a party.

Not that I know personally or anything though.

[Generic Other]

6. When things are handed to you just for asking your rich daddy

they don't have much meaning.

You are imagining you actually showed merit and put forth some actual effort to get to this position. If so, you might not wish to blow it all away under those circumstances.

Bush did nothing but get his daddy to pull strings so he could be assigned a plum spot. Everything in his life was the same. Expend no effort go to Yale. Never crack a book, go to Harvard. Never utter a coherent sentence, be annointed pResident of the US.

A whole do-nothing lifetime.

[benburch]

7. He was never a pilot

100% of his time was in the very rare dual cockpit F-102. 100% of his time was therefore with an instructor at the controls. He never soloed. In fact, he probably never spent more than a few minutes actually in control of the aircraft. This "Champaign Unit" existed to make fake pilots out of fake patriots so that the troubling little war in Viet Nam would not get in the way of the lives of dissipation that they earned by birth.

[napi21]

10. Why do you say he never soloed? He did have his wings.

I'm not disputing anything you said about the privileged, but I thought you had to solo to get your wings!

[benburch]

14. Not if your daddy is an Ambassador...

Bush has been allowed to skate on everything;

Passed school with a "Gentleman's C"

Had his pilot aptitude scores "fixed" to allow him to score the minimum needed to get into flight school.

Was allowed to go AWOL because nobody dared give trouble to a poiled VIP brat.

No, I would bet that he never soloed in an F-102. He DID fly some light aircraft in later years, and if you do some web searching you can read a harrowing account by one of his passengers about a flight that nearly ended in disaster and in which it was obvious that Bush did not understand more than some of the mechanics of flying an aircraft; Not total unfamiliarity, but not a pilot's understanding of the aircraft, either.

[Eloriel]

16. That's positively poetic

And so true.

[ewagner]

8. Same goes for flying in general

once you've been a pilot, you're addicted to flying. It becomes a passion......

hmmmmm. ....did Dubya ever get a private pilot's license after he left the guard?

[napi21]

11. Not that I know of. I'm sure he didn't or we'd be seeing shrub

flitting around in his very own King Air. Well, not having AF1 to "drive him around" but certainly when he was pretending to be an oil man, and as Gov of Tx.

[imax2268]

12. I know quite a number of pilots...

on active duty and retired...the active duty guys are dedicated to their flying status...they wouldn't let anything get in the way of it...

and the retired guys I know still love to fly...

He was no pilot...he wanted to avoid Viet Nam...plain and simple...

[BeachBuckeye]

13. I've known several fighter pilots and each of them has said:

"Flying fighter jets is better than sex....really!" How many guys Bush's age when he was in the Guard would give up sex? Hmmmmmmmm?

[Eloriel]

15. Wrong question

The RIGHT question is: what caused him to "give it up." Lotta times people in the throes of alcohol and drug addiction can't give THAT up either. When you're faced with physicals that would detect your addiction, you can likely give up the flyboy status easier than the drugs/alcohol.

Plus, he's never shown much enterprise or initiative of his own, or even "curiosity" about the world. Low attention span. No sense of responsibility. I can easily see someone like that getting too bored to bother showing up, with or without drugs/alcohol.

[napi21]

17. You may be right, but I just find it hard to believe a young

reasonably attractive single guy would give up a babe magnate job like that!

My guess is that he just wasn't any good at it! Coupled with his other faults or problems, he was afraid of flunking out. Better way is just to not show up and get Daddy to get you a pass. Last night, on another DU post, an ANG officer said there's a problem that 1st Lt GW never made Captain, and that was a given if you showed up and just did your duty.

I wonder if we'll ever know?