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


Frank, I appreciate & respect your views. I am old enough to remember
the "temper of the times" pretty well. The newscasts are still vivid
in my mind, in fact! Some stuff like the moonwalks, LBJ's signature
'Mah fellow Ah-murricans...' the footage of B-52 raids, and the
growing consensus that the war in Vietnam wasn't really worth it.

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.


A good choice IMHO. Not sure what I would have done myself, my family
has a strong tradition of military service and I was not a great
student. With a spiralling recession & talk of reviving the draft, I
enlisted in the Navy in 1978.

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.

Well, all his records have been lost, so nobody really knows, do they?
The funny thing is that most vets I know have copies of many of their
important military records, like evals and of course the DD-214. That
a prominent person like George Bush Jr. had his records "lost" and
none have ever surfaced really smells funny to me.


Clinton, OTOH just dodged the draft.

No more so than anybody else on a student deferment.

... Used influence to temporarily
avoid serving

I've never understood this. What influence did he have? He was a great
student but he was a nobody from a broken home and a poor family.

..so he could go to England on a Rhodes scholarship with
a promise he would serve on return. He broke that promise.

Possibly so. It wouldn't be the first, most likely, and it wouldn't be
the last. However, since bashing the Clintons has become the nation's
largest industry, and much of the bashing is utter fabrication to my
certain knowledge, I am rather reluctant to condemn Clinton for many
of the things that are flung at him, like this "draft dodger" stuff.
There are plenty of things that we definitely know he did that we can
condemn him for.


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.

How about the conscientious objectors who went to Vietnam and followed
their units around unarmed? That takes real guts IMHO.

DSK

On Apr 23, 12:00 am, Marty wrote:
Looking from the outside, it looks like the Democrats are beating
themselves with a stick. Slinging mud at each other,,,McCain must be
chuckling at the ineptitude. The single biggest thing that is being
demonstrated in primary after primary is that America is still
fundamentally racist, blacks vote for blacks, whites vote for whites,
and there are a lot of white Dems who think that's not the case, enough
that Obama is likely to be running against McCain. Anyone care to
speculate if the US is ready to elect a black president?

Cheers
Marty





Sure, especially a black president with a white mother. Naturally the
US remains filled with ignorant hicks who, even after getting punched
in the face again and again, still claim to be proud of their vote for
Bush. What can you do with such people? They still think republicans
are conservative!
As for the Democrats, they're not doing any damage. It's one of the
kindest battles ever and it will soon be over. The public has the
attention span and memory retention of a Mayfly, so little matters
until the presidential race itself winds down to the final weeks.
Few people know or care to ponder what "Public Servant" once meant.


The Good Captain
35s5
NY

Capt. Rob wrote:
On Apr 23, 12:00 am, Marty wrote:
Looking from the outside, it looks like the Democrats are beating
themselves with a stick. Slinging mud at each other,,,McCain must be
chuckling at the ineptitude. The single biggest thing that is being
demonstrated in primary after primary is that America is still
fundamentally racist, blacks vote for blacks, whites vote for whites,
and there are a lot of white Dems who think that's not the case, enough
that Obama is likely to be running against McCain. Anyone care to
speculate if the US is ready to elect a black president?

Cheers
Marty





Sure, especially a black president with a white mother. Naturally the
US remains filled with ignorant hicks who, even after getting punched
in the face again and again, still claim to be proud of their vote for
Bush. What can you do with such people? They still think republicans
are conservative!
As for the Democrats, they're not doing any damage. It's one of the
kindest battles ever and it will soon be over. The public has the
attention span and memory retention of a Mayfly, so little matters
until the presidential race itself winds down to the final weeks.
Few people know or care to ponder what "Public Servant" once meant.

Much as may like to spar with you Bob, I think there's a lot of truth in
your words.

Cheers
Marty