A Tale of Two Deserters Part 2

I don’t know what the future president was doing during the year I was AWOL, before entering Canada. It appears that no one does. No one except George, assuming George can remember.

If I learned anything in my underground period, it was to keep my own counsel. I stayed away from resistance groups, collectives, and anti-war groups. As well intentioned as they were, they attracted police attention and probably spies.

George stayed away from those groups, as well. Perhaps that is why no one knows where he was or what he was actually doing. Perhaps like me, he was travelling incognito, doing day labour jobs, and living in anonymous $10 a week rooms, under assumed names. Avoiding police attention.

Na'. George didn’t do any of that stuff. That was for real deserters, the progeny of truck drivers, policemen, domestic workers and such. Not for the sons of powerful congress men and families of means.

Now, to be fair, the often privileged and or connected young men who made up the majority of Air National Guardsmen, could not get away with the outrageously irresponsible behavior of our future Commander-in-Chief.

However, George being the scion of a moneyed , influential family and the son of a very well connected and powerful Republican politician, was protected and ignored.

Not the same as you and me
The man was virtually gravity free.

I don’t resent that George deserted and got away with it. I mean that. I know others who did. I would not have hesitated to use any advantage my daddy might have offered, had he had any to offer.

George, the scared young man, too inept to stay in school, had a lot to lose by leaving the country. He had as much right to avoid involuntary servitude in an illegal, immoral war as I and every other young man who took his fate into his own hands when he withheld service.

But, George Bush, the man and the President, learned nothing from his experience. It never occurred to him to see it as anything more than a personal problem. He gave no thought to what the young men of his generation were faced with, because of men like his father. George shared none of the risk and missed the many lessons in humility and humanity that might have otherwise come his way.

George learned nothing except further lessons in avoiding responsibility for his actions.

Today, he likes to wear uniforms. He likes to present an image of himself as a military man. He seems childishly proud of being a “War time President”.

He has also been connected to two high profile smear campaigns against real veterans. Sen. McCain and Sen. Kerry, respectively. Two men who served with honour and courage. Two men who probably could have avoided service under that selective service system. George motivated and played part to calling these two men shirkers, cowards, and liars, regarding their real combat service.

To my mind, that reveals character traits that should not be at home in the Oval Office.

Now, add to that, the fact that this man who refused service, is now planning to reconstruct the selective service machinery, and will be feeding the youth of America to his personal crusade.

A man who avoided duty but never stood up for it. Who poses as a military man. Who blatantly lied to Congress, the American people, and the world about weapons of mass destruction, and terrorist ties in Iraq. All to excuse his personal war. This man has no place as Commander-in- Chief of the worlds’ most powerful war machine.

Folly of epic proportions.