[Rhodes22-list] Reply to Pete and yes, Politics

[Tootle]

Pete:

Not all who volunteered for military service during the Vietnam error are
liberal or democrats.  And some of us who did four years of active duty
never were assigned over there.  My assignment in the Air Force was the
equivalent of airborne crew status.  I knew many National Guard Pilots.  The
Air Force assigned pilots and people like me where they needed and wanted
them.  I spent four years in Kansas.  Or as some of us remember tornado
alley.  When I went to work, I did not worry about Viet Cong or Tornados.  I
spent 24 hours minimum a hundred feet or so underground.  However, if my
equipment were to malfuction, no problem.  I babysat 10 megatons of nuclear
warhead.

As I said, I knew many National Guard pilots.  The sequence of events was
that after pilot school, they were assigned to specific aircraft.  They had
to qualify in that aircraft.  Most of the fighter type aircraft the National
Guard flew at that time was discarded junk.  I do not remember the plane
that Bush flew, but when we had this discussion in the past, I knew that it
was a cockpit on a smokestack.  It was dangerous to fly.  It was dangerous
just to take off.  For what it is worth, his job was dangerous.  The planes
the National Guard flew during that time routinely fell out of the sky,
often in a orange ball.  

I know this from personal experience.  I and my crew were returning to base
one day when such an event occurred.  Lucky pilot got out and my people
traversed a wheat field to assist him.  

The plane that Bush flew was not used in Viet Nam.  It was too old and too
dangerous to our own people.  He did request cross training to a type
fighter aircraft in use in Vietnam, but his request was denied.  Not because
of who he was but because they could not get other pilots to train to fly
falling smokestacks.  As the war was winding down the Air Force completely
retired his type aircraft for obvious reasons.

Consider that he did what he was asked to do.  Consider that some others who
did what he, did not always get out of exploding smokestacks.  National
Guard duty in the Air Force is not always a piece of cake.  Even today, the
Air Force National Guard gets some hairy assignments.

Ed K
Greenville, SC, USA


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