Deserter : George Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past

Rating:
Summary: His Records DID Prove He Was AWOL
Review: Actually, on the bottom of page 4 of his UMPR (Uniform Military Personnel Record) from 5/10/73 it says "NO RPT 1 YR" which translated for all of you non-military types means that he did NOT report to any guard unit for an entire year. (In theory you have to attend a drill one weekend a month and spend several weeks each year in training.) The document can be seen on http://www.glcq.com/docs/umpr_5-10-73.htm if you want to look for yourself.

I don't really care that he didn't report for that year as the "system" at the time was designed to make sure that the sons of congressmen were never put in harm's way. What offends me is the way the President lies about it. That being said, when you duck the draft, someone does have to go in your place and I would wonder what happened to that poor sob.

There is a great line in the movie Platoon Leader where a young lieutenant tells his men that he doesn't even care if they, "pull on the little people" (shoot at the VC), they just have to, "be here with the rest of us" getting shot at and enduring the danger. No matter what you think of either Bush or Kerry, their policies or their friends, Bush was AWOL and continues to lie about it.

Rating:
Summary: Our Coward-In-Chief
Review: Although there will surely be some conservatives who'll pretend to be offended by the very title of Ian Williams' book, it is simply impossible to argue with the facts: George W. Bush went AWOL during a time of war. What else can you call him but a deserter? This book stands as the definitive reference on the subject. DESERTER is a well-documented, amazingly timely work that completely debunks all of the weak partisan attempts at obfuscating the truth by presenting irrefutable evidence proving that Bush vanished for the better part of a year and never truly completed his required military duty.

But Dumbya's AWOL is only part of the sordid story. Williams shows us how Bush's entire political career has exhibited strong evidence of complete contempt and disregard for the safety and well-being of those who serve in the armed forces. Any/all veterans will be thoroughly infuriated by this profoundly disturbing book that paints an authentic and gruesomely unflattering picture of our coward-in-chief's military career.



Rating:
Summary: George Bush's war on military families
Review: George Bush military records have been opened. John Kerry will not let his be opened. Never let it be said liberals let a little thing like truth get in their way. If you have an IQ above a post,figure it out.

Rating:
Summary: Ridiculous
Review: Given the fact that Bush's National Guard records have been found, and conclusively show that he was never AWOL, do you think Ian Williams will apologize for this ridiculous hatchet job? The lack of journalistic integrity in this book makes it not worth even one star, but it appears you cannot post a review without giving at least one star.

Rating:
Summary: W's real face
Review: I read the book in one day and at the end of it was absolutely astonished at how much we ignored the horrible lies of George W. Bush, who successfully managed to pursuade Americans that he is a war hero.

It is no secret that George W. Bush wanted a war. He wanted to be a war president. He wanted to be a commander-in-chief. But in fact he is a deserter. While himself dodging the war which he supported, he sent thousands of Americans to fight in Iraq. He has no respect for those who are unfortunate to be serving under his command.

This is not a mere hatchet job, it is a well documented analysis. Ian Williams has put the facts together to draw the real face of the "commander-in-chief".

Rating:
Summary: I started this book with a great deal of skepticism
Review: I started this book with a great deal of skepticism. The author has crossed all his T's and dotted all his I's.

The research seems indisputable. Even if Bush was never charged with being AWOL it certainly appears tthat he was indeed AWOL> I suppose it not a big shock that he would be charged. After all his political connections got him the National Guard posting to begin with when he was clearly unqualified. ( come on a 25% on the test gets him bounced ahead of 500 applicants?!?) Then gets promoted to 2nd Lt without having graduated from flight school yet?

The Bush refuses to take a physical because there was a new requirement for a drug test? That gets his flight status dropped thus wasting the milloin or so dollars of taxpayer money spent to train him. This book is amazing.

Then the coward has the gall to wear a flight suit and challenge the Iraqi's to "bring it on" when he hid under the bed drunk and stoned on coke in Texas when the Viet Cong were bringing it on!

I am veteran and I'm disgusted.

Good book, worth reading. I am anxious to see all those single star reviews from those who have never read it. Maybe Neil Boortz can write one - there's another Chickenhawk warmonger who hid under mommy's bed during the war.





Rating:
Summary: BUSH'S BAND OF LIARS
Review: Ian Willaims presents a fairly balanced forensic review of George W. Bush's miserable military record in the Texas and Alabama Air National Guard. This book doesn't once again rehash what everyone already knows about AWOL Bush's Guard malfeasance. Rather Willaims tries to understand how someone who so theatrically parades around as a "military man" can abuse the genuine articles in today's military --- and their families.

Records relating to George W. Bush's National Guard Service have a suspiciously low survival rate. Of course, there has been understandable incredulity about the recent revelation that a crucial quarter's pay records from 1972 did not survive the Pentagon's supposedly clumsy attempt to transfer the microfilm to a printed page. That lie was increased rather than allayed when Bush's records were supposedly discovered behind which ever filing cabinet they had been dropped.

At issue is whether or not Bush was a DESERTER in his fourth year of National Guard service. At the time, he had requested a transfer to Guard duties in Alabama to assist a Republican senatorial campaign there.

Bush claims that he had turned up and did his duty. However, no one on the base remembers seeing him, including the commanding officer and several other officers. They'd heard he was coming and were eager to network with the hot-shot Texan with the influential father --- but they waited in vain. Bush was a no show in Alabama.

Bush, who eagerly campaigned for Republican pro-Vietnam War candidates, joined the National Guard at the height of the Tet Offensive. He did so with the aid of political influence, jumping a long line -- 500 long -- despite his 25 percent score on his pilot aptitude test-and despite a series of drunk driving convictions that should have required a special waiver. He was commissioned an officer despite having no pilot experience, no time in the ROTC, and without attending Officer Training School.

Then Bush went missing for a year. As a reward, he was allowed to terminate his service early so that he could go to Harvard Business School. The publicly available Guard records does show that Bush had been ordered to report for a flight medical exam in July 1972. But he "failed to accomplish" it, and in September he was ordered to report for an inquiry into why he had not passed. His memories of these momentous events which grounded him and made him unfit for flight duties seem very hazy. But being used to special treatment as a Bush, clearly he wasn't ever bothered by the disgrace of it all.

Today's White House says that because the plane he flew was about to be phased out of service, he felt he did not need to maintain his pilot rating. That was another lie --- since the Guard records show that his jet fighter was in service until 1974. Normally, the Armed Forces do not take kindly to such executive decisions being made by junior officers-and in reality, the Texas Air National Guard was still flying the Delta Dagger that Bush was trained long after he had moved on to Harvard Business School.

There is clearly a dog that is not barking here. For example, the "failure to accomplish" his medical examination could mean either that he did not turn up, or that he did and failed it-in which case the answer may lie in medical records that the Bush Administration has refused to disclose.

It may or may not be significant that mandatory drug testing was introduced in 1972, and that Bush spokespeople have maintained that he had not used narcotics since 1974-while maintaining a discreet silence about what happened before then.

Bush could, if minded, produce W2 forms from the IRS that would show his Guard earnings while in Alabama. He has not. The White House has occasionally released a flood of documents seemingly intended to confuse the issue. The one tangible record that has emerged is that in January of 1973, Bush turned up for a dentist's visit in Alabama-which is intriguing in itself since he was supposed to be back in Texas by then.

The dentist is the only military person in Alabama with a credible memory of Bush attendance. Or rather, he affirmed that it was his signature on the examination card although he had no specific memory of peering into the mouth that would later launch the Iraq War.

The core issue is that Bush, who campaigned eagerly for Republican pro-war candidates, joined the National Guard, correctly checking the box for refusing overseas service, at the height of the Tet Offensive, in what Senator Robert Byrd called the "War of His Generation."

Someone with a sense of decency would think that Bush's use of the National Guard to escape Vietnam should have pevented him and his party from attacking the patriotism and military virtues of triple amputee Senator Max Cleland and John Kerry-having earlier pointed fingers at Bill Clinton. But going AWOL, to the extent of deserting for a year even from this surrogate service, makes Bush doubly vulnerable. This, of course, can account for the disappearance of some of his key Guard paperwork, even though, in truth, these people are incapable of shame.

Bush loves being called "commander-in-chief" and dressing up in uniform [the ONLY U.S. president who dared to do this ever since George Washington declared that the commander-in-chief is a civilian!]. You have to look to Saddam Hussein or Fidel Castro for another head of state who spends as much media time parading before military backdrops.

He avoids town halls or even off the cuff press conferences. Yet something like a third of Bush's statements in the previous 18 months have been delivered on military bases or to veterans' groups.

He is abusing the military as movie extras, as well as car bomb-fodder in a PR campaign designed to show the American public that they need him, big tough W, to protect them from terrorists.

Perhaps Nobel Prize laureate and president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Bobby Muller put it best when commentin g on Ian Willaims' book he said: "Williams describes a President who inhabits a world where the soldiers are tin, where our brave men and women are reduced to photo opportunities in service not of their country's security but the President's warped political and foreign policy agendas. As a veteran I cheer Williams's courage even as I lament the exploitation of our troops."

Rating:
Summary: To negative reviewer Sam Diamond:
Review: Kerry released his service records in April. If you have an IQ above that of a post, figure it out.

Rating:
Summary: WOW- Incredible!
Review: No matter how much people will pick apart John Kerry's service in Vietnam, at least he was there serving his country. Bush does not know what WAR is like - he wasn't there. To send our young children and grandchildren in to harm's way - have them come back mutilated and then decrease their benefits and pay. Disgusting! BUSH does not value life - he only values the good old American dollar!

Rating:
Summary: A book all should read.
Review: This book is excellent. My husband, who's recently retired from the military, and I bought this because of Dubya's flip-flopping on his record. Although a lot seems to be missing (like the DD-214 all of us get when we get out--I have mine), it's still revealing. We're an Air Force family and have known many, many pilots over the years and they take great pride in their flying status and would not miss their annual, required flight physicals for anything.

Too bad the media can't give the same coverage of this like they did the Monica thing. Young men and women are dying while I type this, but hey, let's keep our priorities straight. Since when was it moral to send people to their deaths with lies? Especially when the same people perpetrating these horrible sins were hiding and ensuring they saved their worthless hides while shirking their duty during Viet Nam.

An excellent book for anyone who really cares for our military personnel and their families.