From: "George Z. Bush" am



"Tony Volk" wrote in message
...
I'm curious here. Would it have been different if he broke his back
and
couldn't fly? That would be a medical reason. So what if he was medically
diagnoses as being mentally incompetent to fly? I wasn't there, and I
don't
know him, but it sounds like he was courageous individual who had something
snap that he couldn't consciously control (extreme PTSD presumably). I
won't presume to judge your fraternity's opinion of him, but if he did have
an extreme (now medically diagnosable) mental breakdown, he deserves thanks
for his 62, and pity for his medical condition after. Crappy deal all the
way around.

Why are we branching out into imaginary medical/psychiatric conditions? As
far
as anybody knows, he was of sound mind and body at that time. What it pretty
much boils down to is why he chose to cease flying (which he did when he
failed
to renew his flight physical) while his country was involved in a shooting
war
half way around the world.

His priorities obviously did not include retaining his flying status and
maybe
even volunteering for transition into a combat aircraft in use in Viet Nam
and
maybe even subsequently volunteering to serve in Viet Nam. I suppose he
thought
his Texas ANG experience uniquely qualified him to manage some unknown
Alabama
politician's election campaign, and that was his first priority. Then, too,
maybe the streets of Montgomery or Birmingham being far safer than the
streets
of Pleiku or Bien Hoa might have had something to do with it.

The fact remains that our shooting war was in Southeast Asia and he chose to
walk in the opposite direction. You can call that kind of behavior
courageous,
but I can think of numerous other descriptive adjectives I might use, none of
which would even remotely be identified with courage.

George Z.

Clue me, George, how does a GI of company grade refuse a physical?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired