Navy One heading to museum

where is that museum near you? i feel a day trip coming on.

As one of the original design engineers (right out of university at the time) of the S-3A Viking, it certainly is a wake up call that they are about be retired. Some good use should be found for them. Fire bomber perhaps? Good low altitude maneuverability in that plane.

I also worked on design of the L-1011 and the Space Shuttle, both close to the end. Yea ghads.

Also, people here might already know that I am not an admirer of President Bush, from the very get-go his first day in office he ticked me off (drill for oil in Alaska press conference, morning of first day, before they even knew where the coffee machines were). Nothing since has changed my mind, to say the least.

Funny, but my distrust of Bush reached a peak with that carrier landing in "my jet." If in 1968 you had told me the President would use this plane for a photo-op to promote an unjust war, I would have been incredulous.

And I am still waiting for proof that Bush flew in the National Guard. Never seen the "picture" of him in the cockpit, scanning the skies for the enemy, protecting the citizens; you know, that picture which every fighter pilot has taken, usually with helmet under arm, one hand on the ladder, etc. Bush Sr. certainly had that picture taken in his TBM Avenger.

If you have that picture, please post it somewhere on the Internet.

Even the Chinese pilot who rammed our Navy P-3 had that picture taken.

Vess Irvine Estes Park, Colorado

[stuff snipped]

If you get Wayne Mutza's book on the F-102 it has a pic of the pre-Prez sitting in the cockpit.

John Hairell ( snipped-for-privacy@erols.com)

Lazy and liberal...but I repeat myself...

A quick Google brings up this...with several of those photos you want to see so bad.

Thanks. I have been looking for this pic. I am not sure why the GOP campaign did not give it more exposure. Perhaps they just thought they did not need it.

. ...../V

Well it is not every day a President drops onto a carrier deck at 30 feet per second descent rate and snags a thin little wire which is all that is between him and eternity.

Foolish thing for him to do, gutsy also, but foolish. The President is the commander and chief of all US forces, so his orders are obeyed no matter how foolish. The navy could not veto the flight even if they wanted to. Since the sole purpose of the flight was publicity, not military necessity, some of us are not happy with the event.

There is Presidential precedent. FDR sailed all over the oceans on US Navy ships in wartime, to meet and strategize with allied military and political leadership overseas. Of course, this was a military necessity. FDR once had a torpedo fired at his cruiser by an escorting destroyer by accident. A sailor on the destroyer pressed the shoot button by mistake. Whoops. Captain of that destroyer got fired.

Anyhow, my mixed feelings remain on the whole affair. It gave some publicity to my S3A Viking airplane, which otherwise might have retired into obscurity after very little combat use.

My thinking is we all should be pleased that the S3A saw little combat in it's career. It would have meant nuclear war most probably if it ever had to be used in earnest against Russian submarines.

..../V

Does that mean you think Naval aviators are foolish?

But it wasn't important to the sailors and marines on board was it? Had it not been for the whining of folks such as yourself it would never have recieved the attention it did outside of newsgroups like this one.

And Teddy went down in USS Plunger, Coolidge used the Navy for a vacation. And everytime Clinton went aboard a carrier it was for publicity sake as well... except it's hard to get publicity when the sailors in the hangar are booing you.

Chris C.

REMOVE THE OBVIOUS FROM MY EMAIL ADDY TO REPLY

Just thought that youy'd like to see the shrub's flight qualifacations: Bush Service Time Line 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. (UTP Course #P-V4A-A Moody AFB, Ga. 53 weeks November 1969) January 1,1970: 147th changes from doing Alerts to training F-102 pilots. December 1969 to June 27, 1970: Bush trains full-time to be an F-102 pilot at Ellington Air Force Base. Febuary 1970: Bush attends Preint Pilot Training (T-33 ANG112501 5 weeks ) June 1970: his records are not clear his computer records show RGRAD NAV TNG but his Discharge shows F102 Intcp Pilot Training (F102 ANG1125D 16 weeks). His Military Biography shows: Professional Military Education: Basic Military Training, Undergraduate Pilot Training and nothing else. Here is his total Service July 1970 to April 16, 1972: Bush, as a certified fighter pilot, attends frequent drills and alerts at Ellington. Computer records show last Physical as May 1971. Which also shows him as CR MEM ON FS (crew member on flight service) not PILOT. 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.

It can be viewed first hand at

-- John ___ __[xxx]__ (o - ) --------o00o--(_)--o00o-------

The history of things that didn't happen has never been written - Henry Kissinger

ROTFLMAO!! I wonder if that'll be part of the tour.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

Bingo!

Means he served a lot longer than that weasel Clinton did. Now there was a trustworthy person.

Dave

One reason the Viking's a great, if unsung, ship.

Scott G. Welch

apparently not

OK, thanks for confirming with your research that President Bush did serve in the military (but, I think we all already knew that). Beyond that, what's your point?

Are you getting at the possibility of inconsistency in his military records? If so, as one who also served in the military in the mid-late 60s, I don't get all that excited about confusion and inconsistencies in military records of the time. Almost no military personnel records of the time were created (or stored) on a computer.

They were paper files done with a piece of paper and a typewriter; created, amended, recreated, copied, filed, misplaced, flat-out lost, or discarded by often bored and sometimes incompetent and unconcerned people who would rather have been somewhere else, doing something else. Many, many errors of commission and omission were made (I know this from my own personal experience with my military records of the time).

Are there actual inconsistencies in his military service or is it a case of inept record-keeping? I don't know and I'd bet you don't know for sure either (I wouldn't use that obviously anti-Bush web site you cited as your sole documentation). How about going out and doing some real research of your own. Dig up the actual records. Review them, check them for accuracy, match them against dates, places, times, etc. Then come back and tell us what you've found. Maybe then, I'll take some stock in what you allude to here.

Have a good one..........Bill

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat"

In polite society we are adult enough to admit when we are wrong. You sir, were wrong.

WmB

Don't forget the great file fire that happened in St. Louis (where all former service member records are kept, active, guard, reserve, all branches). Many folks there lost all record of their service and many of them have severely damaged records that are sealed to prevent further degradation.

BTW, if someone checked my enlistment records, they'd see that I only served 3 years and 8+ months of my 6 year National Guard enlistment. Sounds bad unless someone did some further checking to see that I was commissioned in to the Regular Army the day after my discharge.

I believe you will find that there are a lot of Guys in the same boat. There was a big fire at the DOD record center in St. Louis several years ago and a lot of us have no records at all. I encountered this several years ago when trying to confirm W.W.II service for a sick friend of mine so he could get treatment at a veteran's Hospital. His records were "Kaput". I asked about mine out of curiosity (Active & Reserves,

1960-1969) and was told to hang on to my discharge certificate because it was probably the only record of service I had.

Bill Shuey (who is fortunately pretty healthy)

in article snipped-for-privacy@mb-m12.aol.com, The Old Timer at snipped-for-privacy@aol.comspamless wrote on 07/17/03 1:34 PM:

If anyone is interested, the military records of George W. Bush, as released through the Freedom of Information Act, may be viewed at

Enjoy

MBell

just what records were lost in the St. Louis fire.

80% of the records of Army personnel discharged between November 1, 1912 and January 1, 1960, and 75% of Air Force Personal discharged between September 25, 1947 to January 1, 1964 with names alphabetically after Hubbard, James E.

GWB's records fit neither the time frame nor the name span of the lost records.

Actually GWB's records seem to have been well preserved:

has a good collection of records obtained under the FOIA.

There does seem to have been a gap of considerably longer than 18 minutes.

Well he wasn't in the Army so that comment is irrelevent. He was in the military after 1964 so that point is also moot. The point that others have made is that Military record keeping can and has been suspect. There are to many humans in the record keeping chain to even think accuracy is the norm. I've been there and experienced this first hand (20yrs USN retired CPO) and am more than willing to give folks the doubt unless 100% incontrovertible proof is given.

Dave