document source: http://users.cis.net/coldfeet/document.htm
“The story emerged in 2000 when the Boston Globe’s Walter Robinson, after combing through 160 pages of military documents and interviewing Bush’s former commanders, reported that Bush’s flying career came to an abrupt and unexplained end in the spring of 1972 when he asked for, and was inexplicably granted, a transfer to a paper-pushing Guard unit in Alabama. During this time Bush worked on the Senate campaign of a friend of his father’s. With his six-year Guard commitment, Bush was obligated to serve through 1973. But according to his own discharge papers, there is no record that he did any training after May 1972. Indeed, there is no record that Bush performed any Guard service in Alabama at all. In 2000, a group of veterans offered a $3,500 reward for anyone who could confirm Bush’s Alabama Guard service. Of the estimated 600 to 700 Guardsmen who were in Bush’s unit, not a single person came forward.
In 1973 Bush returned to his Houston Guard unit, but in May of that year his commanders could not complete his annual officer effectiveness rating report because, they wrote, “Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of the report.” Based on those records, as well as interviews with Texas Air National guardsmen, the Globe raised serious questions as to whether Bush ever reported for duty at all during 1973.”
American soldiers were dying in Vietnam until 1975
This is a quote from Donald Rumsfeld on the issue:
From the UPI on 1/10/02:
He spoke of the fact that many of those who were drafted were trained, served for a short time and then left the service.
Rumsfeld first referred to the many exemptions issued to certain men in the draft and then said, “what was left was sucked into the intake, trained for a period of months, and then went out, adding no value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period of time, because the churning that took place, it took enormous amount of effort in terms of training, and then they were gone.”