Bush Volunteered for Vietnam

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Recently, individuals from the Air National Guard have come forward to comment that President Bush volunteered for active service in Vietnam. While these new allegations have not been independently verified, it's puzzling that we have not heard more about this in the mainstream press. Then again, it's not surprising at all -BBM)

From Knoxville CBS: One of the criticisms leveled at the President is that he sought guard service to keep him from serving in Vietnam. Morrisey says, "...Not so. The Air Force, in their ultimate wisdom, assembled a group of 102's and took them to Southeast Asia. Bush volunteered to go. [H]e needed to have 500 [flight] hours, but he only had just over 300 hours so he wasn't eligible to go," Morrisey recalls.

From Newsweek: The standard rap against Bush is that he was ducking combat by joining the Guard. Actually, the Texas Air Guard had a program called Palace Alert that allowed pilots to volunteer for flight time in Vietnam. Three of Bush's fellow pilots — Udell, Woodfin and Fred Bradley — recalled to NEWSWEEK that Bush inquired with the base commander about signing up for Palace Alert. He was told no; he had too few flying hours at the time and his plane, the F-102, was by then deemed obsolete for air combat.

(This story broke in February. -BBM)