WP: For the Candidates, Vietnam Choices Linger

Saturday, October 16, 2004; Page A01

(snip)

Bush, however, did not share those sentiments.

In an interview with The Post in 1999, he said he had no recollection of any antiwar activity on campus -- a remarkable statement, considering what was going on. The school's legendary chaplain, William Sloane Coffin, was a national leader of the antiwar movement and had been arrested for aiding draft resistance during Bush's senior year. Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and Lady Bird Johnson were greeted by protesters when they visited Yale that year.

"George Bush had no political visibility whatsoever," said Gaddis Smith, professor emeritus of diplomatic history, who taught Bush and Kerry. "He was more like a student from the decade before, the mid-'50s, people who enjoyed their fraternity life."

According to Coffin, George Bush "missed the great action and passion of his time." While Bush told The Post in 1999 that he generally supported the Johnson administration's position on the war, he did not feel strongly enough to speak out publicly.

"We were very apolitical," Clay Johnson said. "We didn't talk politics."

Some friends believe that Bush associated the antiwar movement at Yale with intellectual snobbery. "He had little sympathy for the antiwar people and their behavior and antics. They were pompous and pretentious," said roommate Robert J. Dieter. "They were 22-year-olds who thought they were going to run the world."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36801-2004Oct15.html

:kick:

"failing to take his required physical"....Military people SHOULD be outraged at bush* conduct, and question bush* ability to lead the troops....

-snips-

The Bush and Kerry biographies parallel each other again in 1971-1972, when each man began showing an interest in national politics. In Bush's case, this period coincided with a waning of interest in flying. After promising his Air National Guard superiors he intended to make flying "a lifetime pursuit," Bush was stripped of his wings in August 1972 after failing to take his required annual pilot's physical.

Bush has never provided a full explanation for why did not take the physical, other than that he wanted to work on the Senate campaign of a family friend in Alabama, Winton M. Blount. According to Marion Knox, secretary to Bush's former commander, the late Col. Jerry B. Killian, Bush's decision upset his superiors because they had invested money and prestige in his flying career.