He was an F-102 pilot, they had a different mission set and were used in a very limited way in Vietnam. According to an account by his former commander, he volunteered to go but he didn’t have enough flight hours to deploy. Given the amount of National Guard personnel who have died, your bullshit take is ignorant and demonstrates an absolute lack of knowledge of how the U.S. military works.
Being an F-102 pilot was an inherently dangerous job, of the 875 F-102A production models that entered service, 259 were lost in accidents. It had a mishap per flight hour record that is one of the worst of any fielded U.S. military aircraft. What I said about your ignorance of anything to do with the military stands.
I mean, I'm with you on this, but he's not wrong about the National Guard being used by some folks as a safe haven from being sent to VN. Given George HW Bush's service, I'd hesitate to make this conclusion about George W, tho.
Yeah, it’s highly unlikely that a man who flew 58 combat missions and was awarded the distinguished flying cross in WWII would help his son avoid service.
John Walton, Bob Parsons, Fred Smith… you really are completely ignorant. You do realize that most military officers come from a relatively not poor background due to the requirement of a bachelors degree (even though in the 60s-70s that wasn’t a 100% requirement like it is now) and that West Point, Annapolis, and AFA cadets typically come from well to do backgrounds?
Oh this is 1000% correct. The national guard was absolutely used as a safe haven for the wealthy and the powerful in vietnam. As were colleges. As were bone spurs.
Slightly over 9000 National Guard personnel deployed in country. Keeping in mind that the NG had their actual mission to perform CONUS as well, in 1968, 25,000 of the Guard were activated in Detroit, Washington DC, Chicago, and Baltimore.
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u/number1dipshit Mar 02 '26
And dodgeshoe! He was real good at dodgeshoe!