Eugene H. Methvin, a native Georgian, was a U.S. Air Force pilot from
1955 to 1958.
"As a 1950s Air Force fighter pilot who flew the all-weather F-86
fighter-interceptor in a squadron transitioning into the F-102, the
plane that George W. Bush later flew, I find most reporters' stories on
Bush's military service terribly skewed by ignorance and partisanship.
Bush was not shirking duty. He was shunted aside. Our experiences were
analogous. We both were "lame ducks" nearing the end of our military commitment.
The Air Force in 1958 faced the problem of maintaining flight
proficiency and combat readiness amid cutbacks as President Eisenhower
determined to balance his budget; and in 1972 the problem was to "build
down" from the Vietnam War.
Commanders allotted precious flying time to senior pilots who had long
commitments ahead.
'For the convenience of the government,' I and hundreds like me were
booted back to civilian life three months early. Like Bush, we spent a
lot of time in pilots' lounges "reading flight safety magazines and
studying flight procedures," as Lt. Col. John B. Calhoun, a retired
Alabama National Guard officer in Atlanta, described Bush's activity.
As a short-termer in 1972 Bush was essentially grounded and would never
fly the F-102 again and knew it. And the Air Guard waved a happy goodbye
when he applied for a six-months-early release to attend Harvard
Business School. Basically, we were both pushed out so commanders could
maintain maximum readiness. This was just the way the military worked.
Yet here, three decades later, comes then-Lt. Col. Bill Turnipseed, who
"doesn't remember" Bush ever reporting for duty. Who is this witness? I
asked a former Alabama National Guard pilot and friend who, like me,
graduated from the University of Georgia in Air Force ROTC and spent
three years flying in the country's Cold War air deterrent array. This
classmate flew RB-47s on a lead combat crew in the Strategic Air
Command, left active duty in 1958, and while working in Montgomery as a
television journalist flew with the same Alabama Air National Guard unit
run by Turnipseed in which Bush later served.
My friend left journalism for a career in Republican campaign media and
in 1972 was running Fletcher Thompson's Republican Senate campaign in
Georgia. He recalls: ' "I know the players. I always liked Bill
Turnipseed. The Air Guard in Montgomery was a 100 percent partisan
Democrat group. Bush was working about a half hour's drive time from
Dannelly Field in the Blount U.S. Senate campaign against their top
elected official; Red Blount had been Nixon's postmaster general.
The Air Guard commanders knew precisely where to find Bush had he been
needed. This Bush/Guard myth has never been anything more than a
Democrat political lie top-to-bottom designed to smear Bush.' "
Moreover, the suggestion that Bush sought to evade the risk of wartime
service in Vietnam by volunteering for the National Guard betrays
colossal ignorance. Air Force pilot training for all-weather fighter-interceptors typically covers 18 months of full-time active duty, followed in Bush's case by
Air National Guard duty flying F-101s and F-102s. The death rate among military pilots flying the all-weather fighter-interceptors, landing in blizzards and rainstorms at night, has always been high. It probably compares to and may exceed service in Vietnam, where fewer than 15 percent were assigned to combat units. (Al Gore was in that noncombat category.)
In my 33-month military career I was in the air or on the flight line when seven pilots "bought the farm." I have flown through the funeral pyre of a wingman and friend who crashed on takeoff, and seen the deadly thunderflash of another pilot who crashed in the same night fog and rain in which I had just landed my similarly crippled F-86.
Bush, in his five years of full-time pilot training and "weekend warrior" service, compiled 625 cockpit hours, more than the 519 I logged in three years on full-time active duty in training and combat-ready squadron service.
It is the custom among military veterans in Washington to stand when bands play their service tunes. At the 2001 Gridiron dinner, among the thousand or so attendees, a
sparse few dozen stood for the Army's "Caissons Go Rolling Along" and the "Marines Hymn"; fewer for the Navy's "Anchors Aweigh" and for the Air Force's "Wild Blue Yonder."
I noted only two standing -- this old Cold War peacetime fighter jock and former Lt. George W. Bush, the commander in chief.
I wonder how many of the reporters and editors feasting on these stories about "Bush's Guard records" have ever served in the military?
Eugene H. Methvin, a native Georgian, was a U.S. Air Force pilot from
1955 to 1958. Since that time he has been a Washington-based newspaper
and magazine journalist.
__________________
"Bitte, trinks du das Wasser nicht. Dahin haben die Kuhen gesheissen."
Bush was AWOL .......
