on July 6, 1946. William White was drafted into our military; his draft order was determined by lottery, according to his birthday. William White died serving his country in Vietnam, and his name is now on the black Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC. George Bush's birthday is also July 6, 1946, thus his lottery number was the same as William White's. But while William White went off to war, and ultimately to die, George Bush used his family influence and a test score 1 point above the minimum allowed to bump another candidate from a stateside assignment. That other candidate, by all odds more qualified than Mr. Bush, was sent off to Vietnam, just like William White. And while Mr. White was being killed, and that other unnamed deprived candidate possibly so, Mr. Bush was taking his stateside assignment VERY unseriously, and very indecently left it before its term, without explanation. And now, while Mr. White's name is etched in black marble, Mr. Bush staged a phony landing on an American carrier, positioned just right so that a city skyline could not be seen in the background. And now, while Mr. White will never walk this earth again, and after Mr. Bush skipped out of his own service, Mr. Bush lied to an entire nation, painting an imminent threat of nuclear catastrophe, and sent 150,000 of our troops to Iraq on his lies. And now, while Mr. White is only a memory, Mr. Bush invited our enemies to shoot at our 150,000 potential Mr. White's with "Bring 'em on!" Mr. White, I thank you for your service, and I was overwhelmed with emotion when I visited your memorial. Mr. Bush, you are a piece of scum, who are defiling our White House with your presence. Leave.
OHHHH, the hypocrisy Let's see - while George Bush was serving his state and his country in the National Guard, Bill Klinton was riding on the "Peace Train" to Russia to protest American Soldiers (the same one's I'm sure he spit at and called 'baby killers') on our enemies soil. Where were you complaining about Bill Klinton and his disservice to American and American soldiers? A letter from Billy Boy to his "benefactor" after Bill had been drafted. Dear Col. Holmes, I am sorry to be so long in writing. I know I promised to let you hear from me at least once a month, and from now on you will, but I have had to have some time to think about this first letter. Almost daily since my return to England I have thought about writing, about what I want to and ought to say. First, I want to thank you, not just for saving me from the draft, but for being so kind and decent to me last summer, when I was as low as I have ever been. One thing which made the bond we struck in good faith somewhat palatable to me was my high regard for you personally. In retrospect, it seems that the admiration might not have been mutual had you known a little more about me, about my political beliefs and activities. At least you might have thought me more fit for the draft than for ROTC. Let me try to explain. As you know, I worked for two years in a very minor position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I did it for the experience and the salary but also for the opportunity, however small, of working every day against a war I opposed and despised with a depth of feeling I had reserved solely for racism in America before Vietnam. I did not take the matter lightly but studied it carefully, and there was a time when not many people had more information about Vietnam at hand than I did. I have written and spoken and marched against the war. One of the national organizers of the Vietnam Moratorium is a close friend of mine. After I left Arkansas last summer, I went to Washington to work in the national headquarters of the Moratorium, then to England to organize the Americans here for demonstrations Oct. 15 and Nov. 16. Interlocked with the war is the draft issue, which I did not begin to consider separately until early 1968. For a law seminar at Georgetown I wrote a paper on the legal arguments for and against allowing, within the Selective Service System, the classification of selective conscientious objection, for those opposed to participation in a particular war, not simply to "participation in war in any form." From my work I came to believe that the draft system itself is illegitimate. No government really rooted in limited, parliamentary democracy should have the power to make its citizens fight and kill and die in a war they may oppose, a war which even possibly may be wrong, a war which, in any case, does not involve immediately the peace and freedom of the nation. The draft was justified in World War II because the life of the people collectively was at stake. Individuals had to fight, if the nation was to survive, for the lives of their countrymen and their way of life. Vietnam is no such case. Nor was Korea an example where, in my opinion, certain military action was justified but the draft was not, for the reasons stated above. Because of my opposition to the draft and the war, I am in great sympathy with those who are not willing to fight, kill, and maybe die for their country (i.e. the particular policy of a particular government) right or wrong. Two of my friends at Oxford are conscientious objectors. I wrote a letter of recommendation for one of them to his Mississippi draft board, a letter which I am more proud of than anything else I wrote at Oxford last year. One of my roommates is a draft resister who is possibly under indictment and may never be able to go home again. He is one of the bravest, best men I know. His country needs men like him more than they know. That he is considered a criminal is an obscenity. The decision not to be a resister and the related subsequent decisions were the most difficult of my life. I decided to accept the draft in spite of my beliefs for one reason: to maintain my political viability within the system. For years I have worked to prepare myself for a political life characterized by both practical political ability and concern for rapid social progress. It is a life I still feel compelled to try to lead. I do not think our system of government is by definition corrupt, however dangerous and inadequate it has been in recent years. (The society may be corrupt, but that is not the same thing, and if that is true we are all finished anyway.) When the draft came, despite political convictions, I was having a hard time facing the prospect of fighting a war I had been fighting against, and that is why I contacted you. ROTC was the one way left in which I could possibly, but not positively, avoid both Vietnam and resistance. Going on with my education, even coming back to England, played no part in my decision to join ROTC. I am back here, and would have been at Arkansas Law School because there is nothing else I can do. In fact, I would like to have been able to take a year out perhaps to teach in a small college or work on some community action project and in the process to decide whether to attend law school or graduate school and how to begin putting what I have learned to use. But the particulars of my personal life are not nearly as important to me as the principles involved. After I signed the ROTC letter of intent I began to wonder whether the compromise I had made with myself was not more objectionable than the draft would have been, because I had no interest in the ROTC program in itself and all I seemed to have done was to protect myself from physical harm. Also, I began to think I had deceived you, not by lies -- there were none -- but by failing to tell you all the things I'm writing now. I doubt that I had the mental coherence to articulate them then. At that time, after we had made our agreement and you had sent my 1-D deferment to my draft board, the anguish and loss of my self regard and self confidence really set in. I hardly slept for weeks and kept going by eating compulsively and reading until exhaustion brought sleep. Finally, on September 12 I stayed up all night writing a letter to the chairman of my draft board, saying basically what is in the preceding paragraph, thanking him for trying to help in a case where he really couldn't, and stating that I couldn't do the ROTC after all and would he please draft me as soon as possible. I never mailed the letter, but I did carry it on me every day until I got on the plane to return to England. I didn't mail the letter because I didn't see, in the end, how my going in the army and maybe going to Vietnam would achieve anything except a feeling that I had punished myself and gotten what I deserved. So I came back to England to try to make something of this second year of my Rhodes scholarship. And that is where I am now, writing to you because you have been good to me and have a right to know what I think and feel. I am writing too in the hope that my telling this one story will help you to understand more clearly how so many fine people have come to find themselves still loving their country but loathing the military, to which you and other good men have devoted years, lifetimes, of the best service you could give. To many of us, it is no longer clear what is service and what is disservice, or if it is clear, the conclusion is likely to be illegal. Forgive the length of this letter. There was much to say. There is still a lot to be said, but it can wait. Please say hello to Col. Jones for me. Merry Christmas. Sincerely, Bill Clinton
Anyone who wants a Tomm fix can check the archives. But here's how he would have responded: This is tipical GOP dog(ma) poop. It's OK for Sapling to be a shirker. That's because Republicans are charletons and hypocrits. ROTFLMAO @ a total idiot. (Actually it was Tomm lite because I wasn't up for a full imitiation, but what the hell.)
Tomm was actually Tom. He used his real first name as his handle. Partisan hack--even most Democrats thought he was an assclown. He left Scott's board when it became a pay board and was banned from here in January. The double M came from another board, where he spelled "Traficant" incorrectly, with a double F. When we called him on it, he said we were all stupid and couldn't read. He persisted even after we linked to the House of Representatives to prove there was only 1 F. He still said he was right and we were wrong. Charleton and hypocrit were a couple of specific Tomm mistakes. Namecalling and capitalizing were two common features of his posts (check the Tigerforums archives.)
Re: OHHHH, the hypocrisy You mean joined the national guard, using daddy's pull, then went AWOL for a year, then, using daddy's pull again, was never prosecuted for it. Clinton used no pull to avoid service nor did he avoid it at all. At least he didn't do like Republican Hero, Tom DeLay who said that all of those black people in the service precluded real patriots like him from service. It's called being a chicken-hawk----->a necessary qualification for republican leadership these days.
It is kind of funny that the same people who are putting down Bush's service record are probably the same people who defended Clinton's record as a draft dodger against the WWII service record of the first Bush back in 1992 saying it did not matter to be Commander in Chief. Do you think the only reason Gore only served in the military press during Vietnam was because of his writing skills? I know(and truly believe) just being there was extremely dangerous, patriotic, and heroic but the fact that he recounts his danger as actually hearing gun fire once versus actually shooting and being shot at regularly shows he was not in the line of fire like the regular troops. If his daddy was not the powerful Senator Gore rival to Nixon would he have still been stationed in the military press?
William White is dead. George Bush is President of the United States. Sounds like Bush made the right call. Your implication is total bullshit. There were thousands of young males born on that date. I'm sure many of them are still alive with stories of their own. I'm equally sure all of them did not serve in the military or fight in Viet Nam. Hell, for all we know, William White would have gone on to a life of crime and many people are alive today because fate put him in harms way.
OK, come on. That's WAY over the line. William White died for his country--dissing him to excuse Bush's actions is just flat-out wrong. But then, Bush's friends had no qualms about trashing John McCain, one of the greatest and most courageous patriots ever, in the primaries.
