August 26, 2004

AWOL for the Goose...
Posted by Jon Henke

Was Kerry AWOL? I mean, it appears he did skip out on his active duty Reserve obligations in the early 70's.

Look, I don't think he was AWOL, and I don't think he was wrong to ask for an early out on his obligation. But I do wonder if the same people who accused Bush of getting out early--"deserting for a year even from this surrogate service", and that he fulfilled his obligation "only because he had essentially been relieved of any further obligation"--will go after Senator Kerry with 1/10th of the righteous anger with which they went after Bush for, essentially, the same thing.

Wait. No. I don't wonder about that at all.

NOTE: You can find a plausible exculpatory explanation of his status here. It concludes....

I conclude that Kerry, while in violation of his contract (as I was) was not legally required to drill and hence not AWOL...
Hm....so, while Kerry was contractually obligated, he had "other priorities" and got an exception that meant he "never showed up for [Reserve Duty] for a period of approximately one year".

Now, where have I heard that before?

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Comments

Classic. (Recall that Al Gore also got an early discharge). All of which goes to show that the people who went bonkers over the "AWOL Bush" smear just didn't understand how the Guard (and in this case the Reserves) operated in the early 70s. By 1972, both Bush and Kerry were essentially paper soldiers - available to be called on if truly needed, but serving no useful purpose in terms of active duty. If they skipped out on some pointless and non-obligatory drills, who cares? They'd done their duty.

Posted by: Crank at August 26, 2004 10:20 AM

I think Kerry who tried to be in the Navy, would have been "UA", unauthorized absence.
Either way; the main stream pin headed fuckwads won't go after it.

Posted by: Greg at August 26, 2004 11:34 AM