THE STORY OF
WingmenForBush.com

This web site traces its roots to an April 2002 Vietnam War pilots/POWs reunion in Fort Worth, Texas. There, brothers Adam and Bryan Makos (pictured at right), who had founded the military aviation magazine Ghost Wings (www.GhostWings.com), sought interviews with the heroic veterans of that war. At the time, Adam was a college junior and Bryan, a high school senior.

When the brothers returned to their home in central Pennsylvania, they possessed a wealth of stories and contacts for upcoming issues of Ghost Wings, a magazine dedicated to publishing the human-interest stories of veterans from WWII to Vietnam. Adam Makos soon began an extensive series

of phone interviews with one of their newfound friends, Colonel Tom Lockhart, a two-tour Vietnam War fighter pilot and Silver Star awardee who had also been one of President Bush’s flight instructors.

Flash forward to late summer, 2004. In the years following their first contact with Lockhart, with his assistance, the staff of Ghost Wings researched the President’s military training experience. They located and interviewed the President’s former Wingmen for a story in an upcoming issue of Ghost Wings. The editors of Ghost Wings also retraced a slice of the President’s Moody AFB experience. Adam Makos had the unique opportunity to understand the demands of flying the T-38 “Talon,” including formation flying and dog-fighting maneuvers, during a media flight with a USAF training squadron. The T-38 that Adam flew aboard is an upgraded model of the same aircraft that the President flew in during 1969. Bryan Makos, on the other hand, flew in the T-6A “Texan II” turboprop trainer, the present-day replacement for the T-37 “Tweet” jet, the primary training aircraft that Bush would have flown before the T-38.

Months later, Adam Makos returned to Moody to re-unite and interview 10 of the President’s commanders, instructors, and fellow students. Upon learning of the need to set the record straight on the President’s honorable military service, Adam and Bryan Makos banded together with the Wingmen for Bush to perpetuate the truth. Having built the web site, www.ChuckYeager.com, a site for the world’s foremost living aviator, the Makos brothers were up to the task of creating, www.WingmenForBush.com. They also commissioned noted aviation artist John D. Shaw to create the painting, Training Command, which depicts the President’s training history while commemorating the men and women of USAF Air Training Command. This illustration, originally intended for the magazine Ghost Wings, has instead taken precedence as the centerpiece of this site.

The President’s Wingmen are a celebrated group of Air Force officers, many with combat experience in Vietnam, and, in Major General Schneider’s case, during the Korean War. In support of their wingman and Commander in Chief, the following core officers have contributed their stories, photos, and memories of then-Lt. Bush to www.WingmenForBush.com

The core contributors include:
• Clarence Parker—Col. U.S.A.F. Ret. 3550th Wing Commander
• Carl G. Schneider—Maj. Gen. U.S.A.F. Ret. Wing Director of Operations
• Anthony G. Kendrick—Col. U.S.A.F. Ret. Asst. Director of Operations
• Thomas Lockhart—Col. U.S.A.F. Ret. Flight Safety Officer
• Frank Twait—Lt. Col. U.S.A.F. Ret. Flight Commander T-37
• Norm Conant—Maj. U.S.A.F. Ret. Flight Commander T-38
• Rodney James—Capt. U.S.A.F. Ret. T-37 Instructor
• Bob Siedel—Capt. U.S.A.F. Ret. T-37 Instructor
• Ralph Anderson—Col. U.S.A.F.R. Ret. Student Pilot
• Paul Repp—Capt. U.S.A.F. Ret. Student Pilot

As visitors to www.WingmenForBush.com will discover, the President’s Wingmen assert that Lt. Bush trained as a member of the active-duty U.S. Air Force for one year, receiving no preferential treatment among his class of 52 student pilots. The Wingmen also assert that by joining the Air National Guard in Texas, President Bush had volunteered for high-risk service, flying a sophisticated, delta-wing fighter aircraft, the F-102 Delta Dart. Counting his time at Moody AFB, Lt. Bush served on a full-time basis for the first two years of his enlistment. This performance set him on the path to becoming a combat-ready fighter pilot who would later fly Cold War air defense alert missions with the 147th Fighter Interceptor Group. The rest, as they say, is history, a history to which the young publishers of Ghost Wings and this web site, now feel an awesome connection.

www.WingmenForBush.com was built on a voluntary, unpaid basis by military and aviation historians Adam and Bryan Makos, age 23 and 21, respectively.