Newsgroup: it.cultura.storia.militare
Titolo: effetti "strani" dell'11 settembre

Leggevo in internet che quest'anno lo US Army, per la prima volta da
parecchio tempo non solo sarà a ranghi completi ma addirittura con un
esubero di 8000 soldati oltre i 480000 previsti dal  Defense Authorization
Act.
Nell'articolo, in cui è presente un'intervista ad un reclutatore, si fa
notare come dopo l'attacco dell'11 settembre siano aumentate in maniera
notevole le domande di volontari non solo nello US army ma in tutti le
agenzie del Dipertiment of Defense.


Per tutti quelli che dicono che gli USA sono un popolo di egoisti.
Al contrario, quando c'è bisogno, la gente comune è disponibile ad
arruolarsi per servire il proprio paese.
Inoltre, il soldato USA prende una buona paga sia durante le guerre che in
tempo di pace e ha la possibilità di studiare e imparare un lavoro durante e
dopo il servizio.
Mirco

 ha scritto nel messaggio
news:sOv_9.150402$AA2.6...@news2.tin.it...

Si sapeva che le domande erano aumentate esponenzialmente, ma avevo letto
anche di scarso entusiasmo da parte del Pentangono, preoccupato che si
trattasse di una sorta di "moda" passeggera dovuta allo shock ed alla
rabbia, e non di vere vocazioni. Andare a "fare il marines" solo perchè si è
incavolati non ha molto senso, il rischio è che dopo 6 mesi, quando il
"pathos" della situazione si è oramai dileguato, passi la voglia.
Mi sembra di capire che hanno comunque colto la palla al balzo per
recuperare personale, anche per compensare proprio il calo di vocazioni
degli ultimi anni (le retribuzioni civili sono maggiori e non si rischia di
finire in irak perchè il presidente ha "le sue cose").
PS. in Italia la crisi di vocazioni è molto peggiore che non negli USA....
il personale scarseggia ed il fattore retributivo e di considerazione
popolare gioca un fattore notevole.


Serebbe bello conoscere l'area di provenienza delle persone arruolate e
l'eta' media , magari si va a scoprire che sono in luoghi in cui la
"recessione " ha colpito e stare per qualche anno nell'esercito ed imparare
un mestiere e' molto meglio che stare a spasso.
Ciao
Diego

 un mestiere e' molto meglio che stare a spasso.
Beh, č quello che succede coi volontari in Italia...in grande maggioranza
provengono dalle aree depresse.
E' comprensibile, ma non va bene cosě.

 dopo il servizio.
Quale e' la composizione sociale, il ceto ecc di questa gente comune?
Pubblicano dei dati in proposito?
-- 
questo articolo e` stato inviato via web dal servizio gratuito 
http://www.newsland.it/news
 segnala gli abusi ad 
ab...@newsland.it

 provengono dalle aree depresse.
dalla serie : la solita carne da cannone...
Difficilmente ci saranno i figli dei petrolieri tra la gente "non egoista"
(per dirla alla Mirco) tra quelli che finiranno in prima linea in Irak.
Lo stesso Bush jr, il Comandante Supremo,  mi pare che sia stato uno di
quelli che ai tempi del Vietnam ha fatto uso di qualche raccomandazione
per rimanere a debita distanza.
bye
s.


 s.
non scherziamo, ha regolarmente fatto il suo dovere nella guardia nazionale 
a manganellare gli studenti universitari texani!
diamo a cesare quello che č di cesare!
mb


Ho di recente letto "Veneto in armi" di Marco Mondini , in cui l'autore
disquisisce del periodo dal 1866 al 1918, ed in effetti ne verrebbe fuori
che una società ( o parte geografica di essa) che non da' all'esercito della
propria nazione graduati e/o ufficiali inevitabilmente oltre naturalmente
all'esclusione fisica va incontro anche al rigetto della figura militare.
In pratica nel Veneto in cui gli ultimi bagliori di "esercito" si erano
concretizzati con la Serenissima , negli anni sopra indicati la classe
"benestante" non si era interessata alla carriera militare avendo grossi
problemi negli anni immediatamente antecedenti alla grande guerra, per il
distacco accumulato, nei confronti dell'aumento dei quadri dell'esercito
italiano presenti nei capoluoghi.
Tali problemi ( a dire dell'autore) non si sono presentati con la truppa in
quanto la propaganda pre-guerra ha colmato la diffidenza delle popolazioni.
Ciao Diego

 dopo il servizio.
In Italia avrebbero fatto tutti il gesto "dell'ombrello"!  Se qualcuno
non lo conosce glielo spiego!
Ciao
        Emanuele
--
Comandante dei reparti anti/sommossa di ICSM
===========================================
http://www.icsm.it
  - It.Cultura.Storia.Militare On-Line
http://www.arpnet.it/assam
 - Associazione per gli Studi di Storia e
Architettura Militare - Museo Forte Bramafam

 Pubblicano dei dati in proposito?
Sicuramente.
Sono appena finito su un articolo che parlava delle loro difficoltà nel
reclutare abbastanza personale, anche dopo 11/09.
E che ci sono spinte per permettere agli arruolati di andare al college
anche mentre stanno servendo.
Questo perché molta gente non vuole ritardare l'ingresso al college per
prestare il servizio militare.
Molti hanno la possibilità di seguire corsi di colle a distanza via Internet
con PC portatili forniti dalle forze armate, ma per ora la cosa non è
diffusa.
Inoltre, la percentuale di soddisfazione della paga è solo del 16% contro il
60% del settore privato.
Dopo tutto, la gente in gamba va pagata e bisogna evitare che si faccia
troppo male.
Quindi ecco perché gli USA spendono tanto in ricerca tecnologica.
Devono far fare a poche persone il lavoro che prima facevano molte più
persone.
Mirco

 raccomandazione per rimanere a debita distanza.
Fece il servizio militare come pilota della Guardia Nazionale del Texas.
Il che significa che il presidente dell'epoca poteva anche spedire quei
mezzi in VietNam se ne sorgeva il bisogno.
Se non lo ha fatto, questo non dipende certo da Bush.
Al contrario, Clinton se ne andò direttamente in GB a fare l'università, per
scansare la leva.
Poi, non ebbe problemi a mandare i soldati in Somalia, in Jugoslavia, ad
attaccare l'Afghanistan e a continuare i bombardamenti e le sanzioni contro
l'Iraq.
Mirco

 diamo a cesare quello che è di cesare!
Lascia SDC fuori dal discorso.
Mirco

 anche mentre stanno servendo.
stracut.
ma tu le mie domande non le capisci o fai finta di non capirle?
--------------------------------
Inviato via 
http://usenet.libero.it

 Se non lo ha fatto, questo non dipende certo da Bush.
no certo. <g>
ti propongo due articoli per ora.
Uno e' del washington post. l'altro e' del Boston globe.
Leggili bene...
t Height of Vietnam, Bush Picks Guard
George W. Bush, right, during his Harvard Business School years. (Harvard
Yearbook)
By George Lardner Jr. and Lois Romano
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, July 28, 1999; Page A1
Fourth of seven articles
Two weeks before he was to graduate from Yale, George Walker Bush stepped
into the offices of the Texas Air National Guard at Ellington Field
outside Houston and announced that he wanted to sign up for pilot training.
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.
Bush's father went on to run for senator in 1970 against Lloyd Bentsen Jr.
? a prominent Texas Democrat whose own son had been placed in the same
Texas Guard unit by the same Col. Staudt around the same time as Bush. On
Election Day, before the polls closed, Guard commanders nominated both
George W. Bush and Lloyd Bentsen III for promotion to first lieutenant ?
even as the elder Bentsen was defeating the elder Bush.
Three decades later, as Bush begins a campaign for the presidency that has
invited new scrutiny of his life, Staudt and other Guard commanders insist
no favoritism was shown to him. But others active in Texas politics in the
1960s say the Texas National Guard was open to string-pulling by the
well-connected, and there are charges that the then-speaker of the Texas
legislature helped George W. gain admittance.
Vietnam was clearly a crucible for Bush, as it was for Bill Clinton, Al
Gore and most other men who left college in the late 1960s. Bush maintains
that he joined the National Guard not to avoid service in Vietnam but
because he wanted to be a fighter pilot. Rather than be drafted and serve
in the infantry ? an assignment Bush has acknowledged he did not want ? he
agreed to spend almost two years in flight training and another four years
in part-time service.
That commitment, in turn, was to frame a period of aimlessness and drift
that Bush now calls his "nomadic" years: As the war and the youth culture
of the 1960s rocked America, Bush partied and dated with gusto, dabbled
half-heartedly in business and politics, and flew jets part time. Apart
from his Guard commitment, he was unemployed for stretches that lasted for
months. His last job before he returned to the East to attend Harvard
Business School, as a social worker helping poor children, was arranged by
his father after George W. drunkenly confronted him one night and
challenged him to a fight.
Even after returning to the elite classrooms of the Ivy League, Bush
seemed adrift compared with his classmates. But Harvard offered the
beginnings of a self-discipline ? his mother called it "structure" ? that
was to propel him back to Texas with an ambition to build his own future.
As he drifted, Bush struggled with his own feelings about Vietnam and the
turmoil he saw around him in America. Over time, he now says, he became
disillusioned with the war, even as he believed that he should support the
government that waged it. "In a sense he was trying to remain a centrist
in a time when there wasn't anything left at the center," said Craig
Stapleton, who is married to Bush's cousin and has been a confidant of
Bush's for 25 years. "All of the sudden everybody moves and you're still
standing in the center. He didn't dodge the military. But he didn't
volunteer to go to Vietnam and get killed, either."
Grabbing a Slot In the National Guard
Bush learned that there were pilot openings in the Texas Air National
Guard during Christmas vacation of his senior year at Yale, when he called
Staudt, the commander of the 147th Fighter Group, and, he said, "found out
what it took to apply."
"He recalls hearing from friends while he was home over the Christmas
break that the Guard was looking for pilots and that Colonel Staudt was
the person to contact," said his communications director, Karen Hughes.
She said Bush did not recall who those friends were.
Retired Col. Rufus G. Martin, then personnel officer in charge of the
147th Fighter Group, said the unit was short of its authorized strength,
but still had a long waiting list, because of the difficulty getting slots
in basic training for recruits at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.
Martin said four openings for pilots were available in the 147th in 1968,
and that Bush got the last one.
Staudt, the colonel who twice had himself photographed with Bush, said his
status as a congressman's son "didn't cut any ice." But others say that it
was not uncommon for well-connected Texans to obtain special consideration
for Air Guard slots. In addition to Bush and Bentsen, many socially or
politically prominent young men were admitted to the Air Guard, according
to former officials; they included the son of then-Sen. John Tower and at
least seven members of the Dallas Cowboys.
"The well-to-do kids had enough sense to get on the waiting list," Martin
said. "Some [applicants] thought they could just walk in the door and sign
up."
One address for those seeking help getting in was Ben Barnes, a Democrat
who was then the speaker of the Texas House and a protege of Gov. John B.
Connally. A top aide to Barnes, Nick Kralj, simultaneously served as aide
to the head of the Texas Air National Guard, the late Brig. Gen. James M.
Rose.
An anonymous letter addressed to a U.S. attorney in Texas, produced in a
discovery proceeding for an ongoing lawsuit, charged that Barnes assisted
Bush in getting into the Guard. The suit was brought by the former
director of the Texas Lottery Commission, who believes Barnes, now a
lobbyist, may have played a role in his dismissal.
In a deposition for the suit, Kralj confirmed that he would get calls from
Barnes or his chief of staff, Robert Spelling, "saying so-and-so is
interested in getting in the Guard." Kralj said he would then forward the
names to Gen. Rose.
In an interview, Barnes also acknowledged that he sometimes received
requests for help in obtaining Guard slots. He said he never received such
a call from then-Rep. Bush or anyone in the Bush family.
However, when asked if an intermediary or friend of the Bush family had
ever asked him to intercede on George W.'s behalf, Barnes declined to
comment. Kralj, in his deposition, said he could not recall any of the
names he gave to Gen. Rose.
Hughes, Bush's spokeswoman, said: "The governor has no knowledge of anyone
making inquiries on his behalf."
Martin and others said Bush was quickly accepted because he was willing to
sign up for the intensive training and six years of service required of
fighter pilots. "It was very difficult to find someone who would commit
himself to the rigorous training that was required," says Martin.
Bush, said Staudt, "said he wanted to fly just like his daddy."
Bush's father had volunteered for service in World War II at the age of 18
and was shot down while flying combat missions in the Pacific theater. By
enlisting in the Guard, his son not only avoided Vietnam but was able to
spend much of his time on active duty in his home town of Houston, flying
F-102 fighter interceptors out of Ellington Air Force Base.
In discussing his own decision, he has always said his main consideration
was that he wanted to be a pilot, and the National Guard gave him a chance
to do that. In 1989 he tried to describe his own thought process to a
Texas interviewer. "I'm saying to myself, 'What do I want to do?' I think
I don't want to be an infantry guy as a private in Vietnam. What I do
decide to want to do is learn to fly."
Asked in a recent interview whether he was avoiding the draft, Bush said,
"No, I was becoming a pilot."
Four months before enlisting, Bush reported at Westover Air Force Base in
Massachusetts to take the Air Force Officers Qualification Test. While
scoring 25 percent for pilot aptitude ? "about as low as you could get and
be accepted," according to Martin ? and 50 percent for navigator aptitude
in his initial testing, he scored 95 percent on questions designed to
reflect "officer quality," compared with a current-day average of 88
percent.
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."
Bush said in an interview that he did not recall checking the box. Two
weeks later, his office provided a statement from a former, state-level
Air Guard personnel officer, asserting that since Bush "was applying for a
specific position with the 147th Fighter Group, it would have been
inappropriate for him to have volunteered for an overseas assignment and
he probably was so advised by the military personnel clerk assisting him
in completing the form."
During a second interview, Bush himself raised the issue.
"Had my unit been called up, I'd have gone . . . to Vietnam," Bush said.
"I was prepared to go."
But there was no chance Bush's unit would be ordered overseas. Bush says
that toward the end of his training in 1970, he tried to volunteer for
overseas duty, asking a commander to put his name on the list for a
"Palace Alert" program, which dispatched qualified F-102 pilots in the
Guard to the Europe and the Far East, occasionally to Vietnam, on three-
to six-month assignments.
He was turned down on the spot. "I did [ask] ? and I was told, 'You're not
going,' " Bush said.
Only pilots with extensive flying time ? at the outset, 1,000 hours were
required ? were sent overseas under the voluntary program. The Air Force,
moreover, was retiring the aging F-102s and had ordered all overseas F-102
units closed down as of June 30, 1970.
After basic training at Lackland and his commissioning as a second
lieutenant in 1968, Bush got what amounted to a two-month-plus vacation
that enabled him to head to Florida to work for a Republican candidate for
the U.S. Senate, Edward J. Gurney. Put on inactive duty status, Bush
arrived in early September and stayed through Election Day, riding the
press plane, handing out releases, and making sure traveling reporters
woke up in time. He occasionally returned to Houston for weekend Guard
duty.
In late November, Bush was sent to Moody Air Force Base outside Valdosta,
Ga., for year-long undergraduate flight school. Bush impressed fellow
trainees with the way he learned to handle a plane, but he became a
celebrity for something else. In the middle of his training, President
Richard M. Nixon sent a plane down to fetch him for an introductory date
with his older daughter Tricia, according to fellow trainee Joseph A.
Chaney. It did not lead to another date, but the story lives on. So does
memory of the graduation ceremony: Rep. Bush gave the commencement speech.
In December 1969, George W. returned to Houston to hone his skills and
eventually fly solo on the all-weather F-102, firing its weapons and
conducting intercept missions against supersonic targets. He learned with
a verve that impressed his superiors, becoming the the first hometown
graduate of the 147th's newly established Combat Crew Training School. The
group's public relations office celebrated his solo flight in March 1970
with a press release that began:
"George Walker Bush is one member of the younger generation who doesn't
get his kicks from pot or hashish or speed. . . . As far as kicks are
concerned, Lt. Bush gets his from the roaring afterburner of the F-102."
Brig. Gen. John Scribner, director of the Texas Military Forces Museum in
Austin, said it was only natural that the Guard would have publicized
Bush's service with special ceremonies and press releases. "That's how
they do things, play it up big, especially since he was a congressman's
son. That was important to the Guard," he said.
No Career in Mind, No Rush to Settle Down
Bush graduated from Combat Crew Training School on June 23, 1970, having
fulfilled his two years of active duty. But he still flew the F-102 Delta
Daggers a few times a month; his unit kept two of the fighters, fully
armed, on round-the-clock alert and needed the pilots to man them. With no
career in mind, Bush was still "looking," as his mother said ? looking for
work and looking for his road. He seemed to be in no rush to settle down,
which his mother said was fine by his parents.
Barbara Bush said she recalled that her father-in-law, Prescott Bush, came
to Yale in the late 1940s and told her husband that " 'you don't have to
make up your mind now what you're going to be when you grow up.' " She
added: "I think we told our children that. . . . I'm sure George did."
George W. promptly took a one-bedroom apartment at one of the most
attractive complexes in Houston at the time, the Chateaux Dijon. A popular
spot for singles, it offered fancy street lamps and striped awnings and
six pools filled with ambitious secretaries, students and young
businessmen. Bush relished his bachelor life there. He played hard,
plunging into all-day water volleyball games, but left frequently for
24-hour flight duty in the alert shack at Ellington Field.
"He did some night-flying as I recall," said Don Ensenat, a Yale classmate
who lived with him in Houston. "No alcohol 24 hours before. They had to
keep planes on alert all the time." Bush had to be ready to scramble in
his F-102 after any flying objects that Air Force radars couldn't figure
out.
Coincidentally, Bush's future wife, Laura Welch, a public school
librarian, lived at the Chateaux Dijon too, but they didn't meet. Bush
dated other women frequently, but none steadily.
"He had a couple of girls that were more than one date, but nothing that
looked like a serious romance," Ensenat said. "Dates and the opposite sex
were always high on the agenda. He was always enjoyable to be around. But
we didn't do anything anybody else in their twenties didn't do."
Ensenat said he never saw Bush use illegal drugs.
That fall, as his father raced Bentsen for the Senate seat, both Bush and
Ensenat, who had already entered law school at the University of Houston,
applied for admission to the University of Texas law school. Both were
rejected, though Ensenat later became a lawyer. Then, after losing to
Bentsen, Bush's father was named ambassador to the United Nations by
President Nixon. The Bushes moved to New York, leaving their eldest son to
rely on his family's old school and corporate ties to find a job.
Bush called Robert H. Gow, a Yale man who had roomed with the senior
Bush's cousin Ray in college and who had been an executive at the senior
Bush's Zapata Off-Shore Co. In 1969, Gow left Zapata and started Stratford
of Texas, a Houston-based agricultural company with diverse interests:
from cattle to chickens to indoor, non-blooming tropical plants.
"We weren't looking for someone, but I thought this would be a talented
guy we should hire, and he was available," Gow said. In early 1971, Gow
gave Bush a job as a management trainee. He was required to wear a coat
and tie and dispatched around the country and even to Central America,
looking for plant nurseries that Stratford might acquire. The newly
buttoned-down businessman also moved into a garage apartment that he
shared with Ensenat off Houston's North Boulevard, an old 1920s
neighborhood close to downtown.
"We traveled to all kinds of peculiar places, like Apopka, Florida, which
was named the foliage capital of the world," said Peter C. Knudtzon,
another Zapata alumnus who was Stratford's executive vice president and
Bush's immediate boss.
Once or twice a month, Bush would announce that he had flight duty and off
he would go, sometimes taking his F-102 from Houston to Orlando and back.
"It was really quite amazing," Knudtzon said. "Here was this young guy
making acquisitions of tropical plants and then up and leaving to fly
fighter planes."
Bush learned the ropes quickly, putting in long hours, and fitting in
smoothly ? but this wasn't the place for the impatient young man. He would
later refer to his time at Stratford as a dull coat-and-tie job. Within
weeks he was talking to Gow and Knudtzon about his future, questioning,
searching ? but never coming to any firm conclusion. His bosses recall
today that he was weighing whether he should pursue public service or
stick it out in the business arena to build some security.
Bush stayed at Stratford only about nine months, and by fall 1971 he was
flirting ? albeit very briefly ? with running for the state legislature.
The Houston Post reported the possibility in a story that misnamed him
"George Bush Jr."
In the late spring of 1972, Bush was again looking, when he joined another
political campaign. This time he helped longtime family friend Jimmy
Allison work in Alabama on the U.S. Senate campaign of Republican Winton
M. "Red" Blount against longtime Democratic incumbent John J. Sparkman.
Bush moved to Alabama and worked until November as political director for
Blount, who lost by a wide margin.
By the end of 1972, Bush's father was mulling over a new job offer from
Nixon ? to be chairman of the Republican National Committee. With his
parents back in Washington, Bush went to stay with them for the holidays
and was involved in one of the most notorious incidents of his "nomadic"
years. He took his 16-year-old brother Marvin out drinking, ran over a
neighbor's garbage cans on the way home, and when his father confronted
him, challenged him to go "mano a mano" outside.
There was no fight, and Bush was apparently able to mollify his father
with the news that he had been accepted for the following fall at Harvard
Business School. But with nothing to do until then, his father decided it
was time to give this restless young man some broader exposure to real
life.
Shortly after Christmas, Bush began working as a counselor with black
youngsters in Houston's Third Ward in a program called PULL (Professionals
United for Leadership) for Youth. The brainchild of the late John L.
White, a former professional football player and civic leader, it was set
up for kids up to 17 in a warehouse on McGowen Street and it offered
sports, crafts, field trips and big-name mentors from the athletic,
entertainment and business worlds.
Bush and his brother Marvin, who tagged along for the summer weeks, were
the only whites in the place. "They stood out like a sore thumb," said
Muriel Simmons Henderson, who was one of PULL's senior counselors. "John
White was a good friend of their father. He told us that the father wanted
George W. to see the other side of life. He asked John if he would put him
in there."
Dressed in khaki, with his pants torn at the knees, Bush managed to fit
right in. He "came early and stayed late," in the words of one former
employee, playing basketball and wrestling with the youngsters, taking
them on field trips to juvenile prisons so they could see that side of
life and resolve not to end up there themselves. He also taught them not
to run when a police cruiser came by.
"He was a super, super guy," said "Big Cat" Ernie Ladd, a 6-foot-9,
320-pound pro football great and PULL luminary who stopped by frequently.
"If he was a stinker, I'd say he was a stinker. But everybody loved him so
much. He had a way with people. . . . They didn't want him to leave." One
little boy in particular, a 6-or-maybe-7-year-old named Jimmy Dean, made a
special connection with Bush. "He was an adorable kid," said Edgar Arnold,
PULL's operating director. "Everybody liked him, but he bypassed all these
famous athletes, all these giants, and picked out George Bush, and vice
versa." The two became inseparable. If George was a little late, Jimmy
would wait for him on the stoop. "At business meetings," Arnold said,
"that kid would be on top of George, head on his shoulders." When Jimmy
showed up shoeless, George bought him shoes.
Bush says he heard many years later that little Jimmy Dean was killed by
gunfire as a teenager. "He was like my adopted little brother."
In keeping with family tradition, Bush did not boast of his pedigree, or
even mention it, to others at PULL. "I didn't know he was of a silver
spoon nature," Henderson said.
His car, like his clothes, carried no hint of it. "He had a bomb of a
car," she remembered. "It was the pits . . . always full of stuff,
clothes, papers. No one could ride in it with him. . . . He never put
himself in the position of looking down his nose at someone, like, 'I've
got all this money, my father is George Bush.' He never talked about his
father. He was so down to earth. . . . You could not help liking him. He
was always fun."
Back to New England And Another School
To start at Harvard, Bush needed early release from Guard duty in Texas,
and he got it easily, about eight months short of a full six years. A Bush
spokesman, Dan Bartlett, said early departures were quite common and, in
Bush's case, appropriate because his unit had phased out the F-102s. Bush
was transferred to a reserve unit in Boston for the rest of his time,
Bartlett noted.
Arriving in Cambridge in September 1973 in his spray-painted Cutlass and
scruffy clothes, Bush was not at all what his classmates expected when the
word spread that he was indeed the son of the Republican National
Committee chairman.
"One of my first recollections of him," says classmate Marty Kahn, "was
sitting in class and hearing the unmistakable sound of someone spitting
tobacco. I turned around and there was George sitting in the back of the
room in his [National Guard] bomber jacket spitting in a cup. You have to
remember this was Harvard Business School. You just didn't see that kind
of thing."
Classmates vividly remember Bush as an iconoclast and a character, someone
who didn't fit the tailored mold of business students in the nation's
premier graduate program. Many of the students who arrived that fall, like
Bush, had been out of college and working a few years. But unlike Bush, a
good number were returning to school with a road map of where they were
heading: Wall Street.
Bush's entry into the program came five years after his graduation from
Yale, and after a series of dead-end or unfulfilling jobs. He was 27 and
clearly had not found his niche yet. "A lot of people went to Harvard
Business School . . . for a job and all that. I went there to actually
learn. And did," says Bush.
Indeed, many of those closest to him, including his mother, believe
Harvard's rigorous academic demands brought his life and potential career
into focus. "Harvard was a great turning point for him. I don't think he'd
say that as much as I would," said Barbara Bush. "I think he learned what
is that word? Structure."
Bush shrugged off the trappings of Harvard and avoided the official clubs
that would showcase him in the yearbook and look good on his resume.
Instead, he showed up for class looking like he had just rolled out of bed
in the morning, often sat in the back of the room chewing gum or dipping
snuff and made it clear to everyone he had no interest in Wall Street.
He was one of the few people who posed for his yearbook mug shot in a
sports shirt, a wrinkled one at that. The other prominent picture of him
in the book showed him sitting in the back row of class with longish hair
blowing a huge bubble.
"This was HBS and people were fooling around with the accouterments of
money and power," recalled April Foley, who dated Bush for a brief period
and has remained friends with him. "While they were drinking Chivas Regal,
he was drinking Wild Turkey. They were smoking Benson and Hedges and he's
dipping Copenhagen, and while they were going to the opera he was listen
to Johnny Rodriguez over and over and over and over."
What Bush wanted to get out of Harvard were some practical business
fundamentals. He wanted to do something entrepreneurial, he told his pals,
but he wasn't sure what. He mused about running for office but told
friends he had to make some money first. Of this everyone was certain:
George W. Bush would never end up on the East Coast. He was going back to
Texas.
Staff researchers Nathan Abse, Madonna Lebling and Mary Lou White
contributed to this report.
© 1999 The Washington Post Company
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
In ogni caso leggiamoci alcune curiosita' sul suo passato.
One-year gap in Bush's National Guard duty
No record of airman at drills from 1972-73
By Walter V. Robinson, Globe Staff, 5/23/2000
 A USTIN, Texas - After George W. Bush became governor in 1995, the
Houston Air National Guard unit he had served with during the Vietnam War
years honored him for his work, noting that he flew an F-102
fighter-interceptor until his discharge in October 1973.
And Bush himself, in his 1999 autobiography, ''A Charge to Keep,''
recounts the thrills of his pilot training, which he completed in June
1970. ''I continued flying with my unit for the next several years,'' the
governor wrote.
But both accounts are contradicted by copies of Bush's military records,
obtained by the Globe. In his final 18 months of military service in 1972
and 1973, Bush did not fly at all. And for much of that time, Bush was all
but unaccounted for: For a full year, there is no record that he showed up
for the periodic drills required of part-time guardsmen.
Bush, who declined to be interviewed on the issue, said through a
spokesman that he has ''some recollection'' of attending drills that year,
but maybe not consistently.
From May to November 1972, Bush was in Alabama working in a US Senate
campaign, and was required to attend drills at an Air National Guard unit
in Montgomery. But there is no evidence in his record that he did so. And
William Turnipseed, the retired general who commanded the Alabama unit
back then, said in an interview last week that Bush never appeared for
duty there.
After the election, Bush returned to Houston. But seven months later, in
May 1973, his two superior officers at Ellington Air Force Base could not
perform his annual evaluation covering the year from May 1, 1972 to April
30, 1973 because, they wrote, ''Lt. Bush has not been observed at this
unit during the period of this report.''
Bush, they mistakenly concluded, had been training with the Alabama unit
for the previous 12 months. Both men have since died. But Ellington's top
personnel officer at the time, retired Colonel Rufus G. Martin, said he
had believed that First Lieutenant Bush completed his final year of
service in Alabama.
A Bush spokesman, Dan Bartlett, said after talking with the governor that
Bush recalls performing some duty in Alabama and ''recalls coming back to
Houston and doing [Guard] duty, though he does not recall if it was on a
consistent basis.''
Noting that Bush, by that point, was no longer flying, Bartlett added,
''It's possible his presence and role became secondary.''
Last night, Mindy Tucker, another Bush campaign aide, asserted that the
governor ''fulfilled all of his requirements in the Guard.'' If he missed
any drills, she said, he made them up later on.
Under Air National Guard rules at the time, guardsmen who missed duty
could be reported to their Selective Service Board and inducted into the
Army as draftees.
If Bush's interest in Guard duty waned, as spokesman Bartlett hinted, the
records and former Guard officials suggest that Bush's unit was
lackadaisical in holding him to his commitment. Many states, Texas among
them, had a record during the Vietnam War of providing a haven in the
Guard for the sons of the well-connected, and a tendency to excuse
shirking by those with political connections.
Those who trained and flew with Bush, until he gave up flying in April
1972, said he was among the best pilots in the 111th Fighter-Interceptor
Squadron. In the 22-month period between the end of his flight training
and his move to Alabama, Bush logged numerous hours of duty, well above
the minimum requirements for so-called ''weekend warriors.''
Indeed, in the first four years of his six-year commitment, Bush spent the
equivalent of 21 months on active duty, including 18 months in flight
school. His Democratic opponent, Vice President Al Gore, who enlisted in
the Army for two years and spent five months in Vietnam, logged only about
a month more active service, since he won an early release from service.
Still, the puzzling gap in Bush's military service is likely to heighten
speculation about the conspicuous underachievement that marked the period
between his 1968 graduation from Yale University and his 1973 entry into
Harvard Business School. It is speculation that Bush has helped to fuel:
For example, he refused for months last year to say whether he had ever
used illegal drugs. Subsequently, however, Bush amended his stance, saying
that he had not done so since 1974.
The period in 1972 and 1973 when Bush sidestepped his military obligation
coincides with a well-publicized incident during the 1972 Christmas
holidays: Bush had a confrontation with his father after he took his
younger brother, Marvin, out drinking and returned to the family's
Washington home after knocking over some garbage cans on the ride home.
In his autobiography, Bush says that his decision to go to business school
the following September was ''a turning point for me.''
Assessing Bush's military service three decades later is no easy task:
Some of his superiors are no longer alive. Others declined to comment, or,
understandably, cannot recall details about Bush's comings and goings. And
as Bush has risen in public life over the last several years, Texas
military officials have put many of his records off-limits and heavily
redacted many other pages, ostensibly because of privacy rules.
But 160 pages of his records, assembled by the Globe from a variety of
sources and supplemented by interviews with former Guard officials, paint
a picture of an Air Guardsman who enjoyed favored treatment on several
occasions.
The ease of Bush's entry into the Air Guard was widely reported last year.
At a time when such billets were coveted and his father was a Houston
congressman, Bush vaulted to the top of a waiting list of 500. Bush and
his father have denied that he received any preferential treatment. But
last year, Ben Barnes, who was speaker of the Texas House in 1968, said in
a sworn deposition in a civil lawsuit that he called Guard officials
seeking a Guard slot for Bush after a friend of Bush's father asked him to
do so.
Before he went to basic training, Bush was approved for an automatic
commission as a second lieutenant and assignment to flight school despite
a score of just 25 percent on a pilot aptitude test. Such commissions were
not uncommon, although most often they went to prospective pilots who had
college ROTC courses or prior Air Force experience. Bush had neither.
In interviews last week, Guard officials from that era said Bush
leapfrogged over other applicants because few applicants were willing to
commit to the 18 months of flight training or the inherent dangers of
flying.
As a pilot, the future governor appeared to do well. After eight weeks of
basic training in the summer of 1968 - and a two-month break to work on a
Senate race in Florida - Bush attended 55 weeks of flight school at Moody
Air Force Base in Georgia, from November 1968 to November 1969, followed
by five months of full-time training on the F-102 back at Ellington.
Retired Colonel Maurice H. Udell, Bush's instructor in the F-102, said he
was impressed with Bush's talent and his attitude. ''He had his boots
shined, his uniform pressed, his hair cut and he said, `Yes, sir' and `No,
sir,''' the instructor recalled.
Said Udell, ''I would rank him in the top 5 percent of pilots I knew. And
in the thinking department, he was in the top 1 percent. He was very
capable and tough as a boot.''
But 22 months after finishing his training, and with two years left on his
six-year commitment, Bush gave up flying - for good, it would turn out. He
sought permission to do ''equivalent training'' at a Guard unit in
Alabama, where he planned to work for several months on the Republican
Senate campaign of Winton Blount, a friend of Bush's father. The proposed
move took Bush off flight status, since no Alabama Guard unit had the
F-102 he was trained to fly.
At that point, starting in May 1972, First Lieutenant Bush began to
disappear from the Guard's radar screen.
When the Globe first raised questions about this period earlier this
month, Bartlett, Bush's spokesman, referred a reporter to Albert Lloyd
Jr., a retired colonel who was the Texas Air Guard's personnel director
from 1969 to 1995.
Lloyd, who a year ago helped the Bush campaign make sense of the
governor's military records, said Bush's aides were concerned about the
gap in his records back then.
On May 24, 1972, after he moved to Alabama, Bush made a formal request to
do his equivalent training at the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron at Maxwell
Air Force Base in Alabama. Two days later, that unit's commander,
Lieutenant Colonel Reese H. Bricken, agreed to have Bush join his unit
temporarily.
In Houston, Bush's superiors approved. But a higher headquarters
disapproved, noting that Bricken's unit did not have regular drills.
''We met just one weeknight a month. We were only a postal unit. We had no
airplanes. We had no pilots. We had no nothing,'' Bricken said in an
interview.
Last week, Lloyd said he is mystified why Bush's superiors at the time
approved duty at such a unit.
Inexplicably, months went by with no resolution to Bush's status - and no
Guard duty. Bush's evident disconnection from his Guard duties was
underscored in August, when he was removed from flight status for failing
to take his annual flight physical.
Finally, on Sept. 5, 1972, Bush requested permission to do duty for
September, October, and November at the 187th Tactical Recon Group in
Montgomery. Permission was granted, and Bush was directed to report to
Turnipseed, the unit's commander.
In interviews last week, Turnipseed and his administrative officer at the
time, Kenneth K. Lott, said they had no memory of Bush ever reporting.
''Had he reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not,''
Turnipseed said. ''I had been in Texas, done my flight training there. If
we had had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would have remembered.''
Lloyd, the retired Texas Air Guard official, said he does not know whether
Bush performed duty in Alabama. ''If he did, his drill attendance should
have been certified and sent to Ellington, and there would have been a
record. We cannot find the records to show he fulfilled the requirements
in Alabama,'' he said.
Indeed, Bush's discharge papers list his service and duty station for each
of his first four years in the Air Guard. But there is no record of
training listed after May 1972, and no mention of any service in Alabama.
On that discharge form, Lloyd said, ''there should have been an entry for
the period between May 1972 and May 1973.''
Said Lloyd, ''It appeared he had a bad year. He might have lost interest,
since he knew he was getting out.''
In an effort last year to solve the puzzle, Lloyd said he scoured Guard
records, where he found two ''special orders'' commanding Bush to appear
for active duty on nine days in May 1973. That is the same month that
Lieutenant Colonel William D. Harris Jr. and Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B.
Killian effectively declared Bush missing from duty.
In Bush's annual efficiency report, dated May 2, 1973, the two supervising
pilots did not rate Bush for the prior year, writing, ''Lt. Bush has not
been observed at this unit during the period of report. A civilian
occupation made it necessary for him to move to Montgomery, Alabama. He
cleared this base on 15 May 1972 and has been performing equivalent
training in a non-flying status with the 187 Tac Recon Gp, Dannelly ANG
Base, Alabama.''
Asked about that declaration, campaign spokesman Bartlett said Bush told
him that since he was no longer flying, he was doing ''odds and ends''
under different supervisors whose names he could not recall.
But retired colonel Martin, the unit's former administrative officer, said
he too thought Bush had been in Alabama for that entire year. Harris and
Killian, he said, would have known if Bush returned to duty at Ellington.
And Bush, in his autobiography, identifies the late colonel Killian as a
friend, making it even more likely that Killian knew where Bush was.
Lieutenant Bush, to be sure, had gone off flying status when he went to
Alabama. But had he returned to his unit in November 1972, there would
have been no barrier to him flying again, except passing a flight
physical. Although the F-102 was being phased out, his unit's records show
that Guard pilots logged thousands of hours in the F-102 in 1973.
During his search, Lloyd said, the only other paperwork he discovered was
a single torn page bearing Bush's social security number and numbers
awarding some points for Guard duty. But the partial page is undated. If
it represents the year in question, it leaves unexplained why Bush's two
superior officers would have declared him absent for the full year.
There is no doubt that Bush was in Houston in late 1972 and early 1973.
During that period, according to Bush's autobiography, he held a civilian
job working for an inner-city, antipoverty program in the city.
Lloyd, who has studied the records extensively, said he is an admirer of
the governor and believes ''the governor honestly served his country and
fulfilled his commitment.''
But Lloyd said it is possible that since Bush had his sights set on
discharge and the unit was beginning to replace the F-102s, Bush's
superiors told him he was not ''in the flow chart. Maybe George Bush took
that as a signal and said, `Hell, I'm not going to bother going to drills.'
''Well, then it comes rating time, and someone says, `Oh...he hasn't
fulfilled his obligation.' I'll bet someone called him up and said,
`George, you're in a pickle. Get your ass down here and perform some
duty.' And he did,'' Lloyd said.
That would explain, Lloyd said, the records showing Bush cramming so many
drills into May, June, and July 1973. During those three months, Bush
spent 36 days on duty.
Bush's last day in uniform before he moved to Cambridge was July 30, 1973.
His official release from active duty was dated Oct. 1, 1973, eight months
before his six-year commitment was scheduled to end.
Officially, the period between May 1972 and May 1973 remains unaccounted
for. In November 1973, responding to a request from the headquarters of
the Air National Guard for Bush's annual evaluation for that year, Martin,
the Ellington administrative officer, wrote, ''Report for this period not
available for administrative reasons.''
------------------------------------------------------------
BUSH'S MILITARY SERVICE
During his first four years in the Texas Air National Guard, according to
his military records, Bush had a busy schedule of full-time training and
drills:
[*] May 28, 1968 : Bush enlists as an Airman Basic in the 147th
Fighter-Interceptor Group, Ellington Air Force Base, Houston, and is
selected to attend pilot training.
[*] July 12, 1968 : A three-member board of officers decides that Bush
should get a direct commission as a second lieutenant after competing
airman's basic training.
[*] July 14 to Aug. 25, 1968: Bush attends six weeks of basic training at
Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.
[*] Sept. 4, 1968: Bush is commissioned a second lieutenant and takes an
8-week leave to work on a Senate campaign in Florida.
[*] Nov. 25, 1968 to Nov. 28, 1969: Bush attends and graduates from flight
school at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia.
[*] December 1969 to June 27, 1970: Bush trains full-time to be an F-102
pilot at Ellington Air Force Base.
[*] July 1970 to April 16, 1972: Bush, as a certified fighter pilot,
attends frequent drills and alerts at Ellington.
During his fifth year as a guardsman, Bush's records show no sign he
appeared for duty.
[*] May 24, 1972 : Bush, who has moved to Alabama to work on a US Senate
race, gets permission to serve with a reserve unit in Alabama. But
headquarters decided Bush must serve with a more active unit.
[*] Sept. 5, 1972 : Bush is granted permission to do his Guard duty at the
187th Tactical Recon Group in Montgomery. But Bush's record shows no
evidence he did the duty, and the unit commander says he never showed up.
[*] November 1972 to April 30, 1973: Bush returns to Houston, but
apparently not to his Air Force unit.
[*] May 2, 1973 : The two lieutenant colonels in charge of Bush's unit in
Houston cannot rate him for the prior 12 months, saying he has not been at
the unit in that period.
[*] May to July 1973: Bush, after special orders are issued for him to
report for duty, logs 36 days of duty.
[*] July 30, 1973: His last day in uniform, according to his records.
[*] Oct. 1, 1973 : A month after Bush starts at Harvard Business School,
he is formally discharged from the Texas Air National Guard -- eight
months before his six-year term expires.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E tu mi dici che non gli e' stato parato il culo dall'andare in Vietnam??
saluti
Sergio



[GW in the Texas National Guard] The Washington Post reports that Bush
joined the National Guard 12 days before his student deferment would have
expired, and that in spite of his low score on the pilot's aptitude test
(25, the lowest score allowed), and in spite of the waiting list that some
kids spent years on, Bush was sworn in as an airman the day he applied. 
Indeed, so giddy was Bush's commander, Col. Walter B. "Buck" Staudt, that
he later staged a special ceremony so he could have his picture taken
giving Bush the oath, instead of the captain who actually had sworn Bush
in.  Bush spent two years learning to fly airplanes in his home state of
Texas.
As the 2000 Presidential campaign moved along, angry veterans in Alabama
claimed that George W Bush never performed any military service in that
state, as stated on his campaign website.  They offered a reward of $1000
(which rose to $3,500) to anyone who could prove that he had.  No one came
forth with any proof.  
Eight days before the election, the Boston Globe reported discrepancies
between the Bush campaign's statements regarding his military service and
what records and documents showed.  In 1972, the Globe reported, Bush
moved from Houston to Mobile, Alabama to work on a Senate campaign.  It
was at this time, the Globe found, that he was suspended from flight duty
for not taking his annual flight physical.  Furthermore, the Globe could
find no evidence that he ever performed any drills while in Alabama, or
any more drills after returning to Houston.   [GW, not on Guard Duty]
Bush refused to answer any questions concerning the charges. His official
White House biography states, "He served as an F-102 pilot for the Texas
Air National Guard before beginning his career in the oil and gas business
in Midland in 1975..." but gives no further details about his military
service. 
Perhaps when President Bush was comparing war to raising twins, he was
referring to our current War on Terror.  One could imagine it would be
easier than raising twins, if all you are doing is sending other people's
children off to kill other people's children.  


 Pubblicano dei dati in proposito?
Non è proprio una risposta alla tua domanda, ma credo di sapere cosa 
intendi.
IL militare medio USA, amche a livello di truppa, è "moderatamente" 
istruito.
Ormai non arruolano più nessuno che non abbia una licenza di high school, a 
meno che non dimostri particolari doti durante l'intervista per 
l'arruolamento e cmq, in quel caso, l'esercito gli paga gli studi per 
raggiumgere la licenza di high school.
Inoltre gli standard per l'aruolamento sono fra i più alti di tutto il 
mondo; la penuria di organico degli anni predenti non era dovuta tanto a 
mancanza di volontari quanto al fatto che molti venivano scartati già al 
momento delle interviste, prima ancora che iniziasse l'addestramento vero e 
prorpio (che cmq ne sega via un'altro bel numero).
IL motivo di tale selezione è legato al fatto che, durante il proprio 
servizio, il militare USA si troverà ad utilizzare materiale di altissimo 
contenuto tecnologico, in molti casi quanto di meglio la tecnologia possa 
fornire.
I precedenti penali sono inoltre una forte pregiudizievole all'aruolamento 
(sono ormai finiti i tempi in cui un giudice dava la scelta fra il carcere 
o il servizio militare); soptattutto in caso di precdenti penali legati a 
droga è quasi impossibile farsi aruolare.
Da tutto ciò ne consegue che il militare medio americanon non è 
l'espressione dei sobborghi delle metropoli USA o un ex delinquente, ma 
nella maggior parte dei casi figlio del ceto medio-borghese o comunque di 
famiglie che hanno potuto pagare l'istruzione dei propri figli (che negli 
USA è abbastanza cara).
Per quanto riguarda gli ufficiali il discorso è simile con in più la 
necessità di una laurea per potersi iscrivere al corso allievi ufficiali.

 ricordo...
Era tenente di vascello ed era comandante di una motosilurante in servizio 
nel pacifico (ci hanno pure fatto un discreto film)


il grado e il film li conoscevo gia' :)
Volevo sapere se era gia' in politica.
ciao
Sergio


 Volevo sapere se era gia' in politica.
C'era già tutta la famiglia.
E anche in affari con la Mafia, dai tempi del padre.
Mirco

 ricordo...
Faceva il marinaio nella Navy (non so che grado).
Ed è finito a mollo per un po'.
C'è pure un film che racconta la storia (degli anni 60 se non ricordo male).
Bush padre invece è stato pilota di bombardieri durante la WW2.
Mirco

 necessità di una laurea per potersi iscrivere al corso allievi ufficiali.
Dove posso leggerne di piu' per avere conferma di quello che hai 
scritto? Mi risultavano cose differenti da quelle che hai scritto..
ciao
Sergio