SwiftVets.com

[quarternelson]

I don't know if this has been covered yet, but I am interested to know how many National Guardsmen were causalties during the Vietnam war, if any.

Kerry and his supporters make a point of saying that President Bush avoided service in Vietnam by joining the National Guard. It seems to me that even Bush's family would have a difficult time influencing which Guard units were activated. However, my primary reason for asking this question is that the number of causalties would quickly make it clear that this was not an avenue to escape combat duty.

[LewWaters]

Look here;

http://www.eiis.net/cmart/vietwarstats.html
_________________
Clark County Conservative

[quarternelson]

Thanks much.

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

Not only was the National Guard not a failsafe against going to Vietnam, George Bush volunteered to go to Vietnam at the same time as three other guys from his unit.

The two with the most flight time were accepted, and for good reason - the F-102 achieved all the aerodynamic stability of a falling refrigerator under certain circumstances and the maneuvers required for air-to-air combat often created exactly the circumstances necessary.


From Tim Worstall's Typepad

[TEWSPilot]

I just discovered this thread tonight, so let me add a little to it.

Neither John Kerry nor GW Bush nor I, for that matter, had any say in whether we would be assigned duty in Vietnam unless we volunteered. Some of us did volunteer. Of course one could petition for 4 educational deferments and a fifth to spend a year in Paris studying French as John Forbes Kerry did, being rich and a prodigy of John F. Kennedy. If one received 3 Purple Hearts, he could ask to come home, even after just 3 or 4 months, and even if the wounds didn't cost him any downtime, as John Kerry did. The only ways to guarantee we would not be assigned to Vietnam would be to desert or dodge the draft, like Bill Clinton and many of the "Vietnam Veterans Against the War", or petition for status change to "Conscientious Objector" prior to receiving orders, or obtain an educational or family deferment, as millions of Americans did. During my 12 month tour (actually 366 days), more than half the pilots with whom I flew my 100+ missions in Vietnam were Reservists, like me, and Air Guardsmen. John Kerry equated Guardsmen with draft dodgers. The majority of members of the Guard and Reserves are former Active Duty military. I often wondered how many names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall are of National Guardsmen and Reservists. One hundred and forty Medal of Honor recipients were in the National Guard. Six thousand seventy-seven members of the National Guard or Reserves died in Vietnam.

I dare say you probably know a Vietnam veteran. Perhaps you are a veteran. I know a lot of them, too. I hope you know me now. I am your neighbor, your son, your brother, your cousin, your nephew, your uncle, your father, your grandfather -- your friend. I am no different from every American who ever served in Vietnam -- except one: John Forbes Kerry.

The Promise Kept

[82nd_Airborne_Dad]