The Wingmen Assert the Following:

1. Bush enlisted in the ANG knowing that he and his unit could be sent to Vietnam.
Critics and opponents of George W. Bush have accused him and others of “hiding” in the Air National Guard (ANG) to avoid service in Vietnam. Such an accusation is invalid. If the ANG was a “haven” from the war, tell that to the New Mexico ANG, the Colorado ANG, the Iowa ANG, and the New York ANG. These states sent F-100 fighter-bomber squadrons to fight in Vietnam during the spring of 1968; simultaneously, Bush, then a student at Yale, took the Air Force tests to enlist in his state’s ANG.

History shows that individual ANG units had been flying supply mission in Vietnam since 1965. During Bush’s tenure in the Texas ANG, his unit could have been sent to fight in Vietnam on a moment’s notice. However, such an order to further mobilize the Guard or Reserves would have had to come from President Johnson and/or Secretary of Defense McNamara. According to Lt. Col. William Campenni, who flew with Bush, “Johnson and McNamara . . . deliberately avoided use of the Guard and Reserves for domestic political calculations, knowing that a draftee only stirred up the concerns of one family, while a call-up got a whole community's attention.”

While Bush could have chosen a desk job in the Guard, he chose to become a fighter pilot, a duty imbued with risk, and, as illustrated above, potential for a combat assignment.