Bush Speaks on Volunteers

    George Bush is putting one hell of a strain on our military while sending volunteer ( National Guard ) troops over to Iraq.

    Here is what he had to say when his own military service was compared to today's.

   From DailyKos

Volunteers

by mcjoan

Tue Jan 16, 2007

I was on a plane Sunday night, so mercifully was spared the dilemma of whether I should watch Bush on 60 Minutes. Instead, I get to read what others are saying about it, and in doing so, came across this part of the interview posted at the MoJo Blog:

A telling moment in the interview (this one's not in the transcript, perhaps because it was not in the formal sitdown session) came when Pelley asked Bush whether multiple deployments, two, three, four of them for some, were fair to the troops and their families. Bush answered saying, "this military is motivated," (meaning, and I'm guessing here, that soldiers are more than happy to leave their families and return again and again to Iraq?).

But the toll it's taking on soldiers, pushed Pelley, who then referenced Bush's brief service in the National Guard:

Pelley: In Vietnam as you know, you served 365 and you were done.

Bush: This is a different situation. This is a volunteer army. In Vietnam, it was, ‘We’re going to draft you and you’re going to go for a year.'

Well, for George Bush it most definitely was not "We're going to draft you and you're going for a year." It was, "Your Daddy's a Congressman? Well, sure you can volunteer and 'serve' with the Texas Air National Guard. When you feel like showing up, that is."

So let's do a little compare and contrast exercise with volunteering for service in George Bush's world. Here's his own experience:

It was May 27, 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War. Bush was 12 days away from losing his student deferment from the draft at a time when Americans were dying in combat at the rate of 350 a week. The unit Bush wanted to join offered him the chance to fulfill his military commitment at a base in Texas. It was seen as an escape route from Vietnam by many men his age, and usually had a long waiting list.

Bush had scored only 25 percent on a "pilot aptitude" test, the lowest acceptable grade. But his father was then a congressman from Houston, and the commanders of the Texas Guard clearly had an appreciation of politics.

Bush was sworn in as an airman the same day he applied. His commander, Col. Walter B. "Buck" Staudt, was apparently so pleased to have a VIP's son in his unit that he later staged a special ceremony so he could have his picture taken administering the oath, instead of the captain who actually had sworn Bush in. Later, when Bush was commissioned a second lieutenant by another subordinate, Staudt again staged a special ceremony for the cameras, this time with Bush's father the congressman – a supporter of the Vietnam War – standing proudly in the background....

Among the questions Bush had to answer on his application forms was whether he wanted to go overseas. Bush checked the box that said: "do not volunteer."

And this is what today's volunteers face:

Confronted with the increasing demands of the Iraq war, the Pentagon announced plans Thursday to recall Army National Guard units that have already fought in Iraq to serve second tours, reversing a long-standing policy that allowed Guard members to return home for five years before being redeployed....

More than 200,000 Guard members and reservists from units across the country have served in Iraq or Afghanistan over the last five years, and many who had returned to civilian life could be summoned back into active duty under the policy change. Of 3,018 U.S. military deaths in Iraq, 383 were in the Army National Guard and 214 were Army or Marine reservists, according to iCasualties.org, which tracks military deaths.

Pentagon officials have said that the next round of deployments are most likely to involve the first regiments sent to Iraq in 2003 and early 2004. Among those early units was the California National Guard's 1st Battalion, 185th Armored Regiment, from San Bernardino, now an infantry unit, which served in Iraq from early 2004 until 2005.

Yes, we have an all volunteer army. Made up of a lot of people who volunteered in their states' national guards to do things like respond to hurricanes and fight forest fires. They are a volunteer army who most certainly didn't volunteer to get out of having to serve in a hellacious, pointless war like their president did. No, they volunteered to actually serve their country. And they volunteered for one year of service deployment and five years at home. Instead, they've been drafted into something they most definitely did not sign up for. For a war that should never have been fought, that has been completely mismanaged by an incompetent president.

And George Bush is going to tell them about sacrifice? The man who volunteered in order to shirk.

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Technorati tags: Bush, Volunteers