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Capt. JG

"Frank Boettcher" wrote in message
news

On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 06:23:02 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

And did you consider our current President's "military
experience" (getting drunk at the O-club and going AWOL, followed by
the convenient loss of all his records) valuable when weighing your
vote?

DSK

Doug, as one who was there I'll offer some additional information
regarding this subject.

Within six months or so, I am the same age as both Bush and Clinton.
I was subject to those same decisions regarding what to do about the
draft similar to each of those individuals. Falling behind in my class
because of lack of money and the neccessity to work, and losing my
deferrment, I chose to join the Marine Corp Reserves, rather than be
drafted. I thought that, if deployed, it would be better to go with
people I know who would be pretrained. If not deployed, I could
continue with my education and life in general.

Bush joined the Guard much later than I. At the time that the
alledged AWOL took place the military was in a mode of trying to dump
excess personnel. The war in Vietnam was winding down, experienced
pilots and other military specalities were coming home and there were
too many of them. Additionally, the military had just gone through an
extensive pay increase to try to get equity with private industry to
be able to compete for future people, in anticipation of the
elimination of the draft and an all volunteer, professional military.
They were trying to cut costs. I know of many people in my unit who
were advised when transferrring to a new area, that they could get out
if a unit was not conveniently located. I got the impression they
were encouraged to do that. Maybe he used influence, maybe he didn't
but it helps to know what the climate was at that time.

Clinton, OTOH just dodged the draft. Used influence to temporarily
avoid serving so he could go to England on a Rhodes scholarship with
a promise he would serve on return. He broke that promise. This was
an earlier timeframe before the winding down of Viet Nam.

I think I have more respect for those that went to Canada to avoid the
draft and a war that was ill conceived and poorly executed, than for
Clinton. After all, they gave up their lives and homes without
knowing if they could ever come back. Clinton gave up nothing, just
used influence.

My thoughts on the matter

Frank

A bunch of bs. As though Bush didn't use his father's influence. As though
he completed his obligation. As though he wasn't a drunk.

I didn't realize that Clinton went to Canada, which last I checked was the
defacto destination for "draft dodgers."

Still fighting the same war there Frank... the one about how terrible
Clinton was. EXCEPT that he did more for this country than just about any
other president in modern times; whereas, Bush has done the worse by far.
Maybe you should blame Hillary for having enough sense of family values to
stick it out in the marriage.

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com