Mass Comm.
On September 8, 2004 60 Minutes hosted by CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather aired a show questioning President Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard. Rather interviewed Ben Barnes a former Texas House Speaker and Lt. Governor who testified that George W. Bush received special treatment by being admitted in to the Texas National Guard to avoid being drafted for the Vietnam War. Barnes a Democrat who was an active supporter in the Kerry campaign said Sid Adger a close friend to the Bush family asked him if he would recommend young George Bush to the Aired National Guard in order to prevent him from being shipped overseas. Barnes believed his actions were of preferential treatment because there was a list of hundreds of names who wanted to enter the Air National Guard.
Dan Rather claimed following the Barnes interview that 60 Minutes had obtained a number of documents from Col. Jerry Killian who was commander at Texas Air National Guard during Bush’s tenure. One of the documents was from May 1972, where Killian wrote that Lt. Bush had asked him if he can get out of coming to drills from May through November in order to work on his campaign in Alabama. The memo also stated that Bush said he may not have time to take his physical. In a memo from August 18, 1973, Col Killian wrote that Col. Buck Staudt, the man running the Texas Air National Guard was pressuring him to “Sugar Coat” the evaluation of Lt. Bush. The document that brought up the most controversy was a memo written by Col. Killian put in his own personal files stating that Bush was failing to perform to U.S. Air Force and Texas Air National Guard standards. Since Killian died in 1984, 60 Minutes hired a team of individuals with expertise in handwriting analyst and document authentication claimed the memorandums were authentic.
Immediately following the 60 Minutes episode aired on September 8, 2004, the documents used for the program became under heavy scrutiny. The information from the documents used by 60 Minutes did not comply with the military records of Texas Air National Guard. For instance, the official record of the Air National Guard shows that Mr. Bush was suspended from flying on Aug. 1, 1972. That date contrast to a memo given to CBS News, ordering that Mr. Bush be suspended on Aug.
One of the key strengths of this book is the author's first-hand knowledge of the people, places, and events that he is writing about. He also supplemented this first-hand knowledge with extensive interviews. In one example, he elaborated on the "chain of command" in Vietnam, which began with General Paul Harkins (and William C. Westmoreland) to the CINCPAC (Admiral Harry Felt) and from CINCPAC to Washington. "Not once in their four years of mutual agony in Vietnam did Harkins's successor, General Westmoreland, pick up the telephone and call his commander-in-chief, President Lyndon B. Johnson. Westmoreland did not have the authority, he told me."(169) This information came directly from an interview with Westmoreland. There are other anecdotes similar to this with each contributing to the extensive nature of the book's detail.
Martin, S. Walter, and W. W. Blackford. "War Years With Jeb Stuart." The American Historical Review 51, no. 3 (1946): 518.
The “pentagon papers”, officially titled: Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force, was a U.S. government study commissioned, by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, in 1967. [Robert McNamara served under both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.] The study traced the United States involvement in Vietnam from World War II to the present. The papers were highly confidential and compiled by many sources. Groups, such as the military, universities, and private organizations, worked on portions of the study. The joint efforts created a 47-volume study; only 38 of the 47 volumes were physically produced. One of the groups which had worked on the study was RAND Corporation. An employee of Rand Corporation, Daniel Ellsberg, used his clearance to gain access to a printed copy of the Pentagon Papers. Ellsberg then began secretly removing and copying volumes o...
Rumsfeld, D. (2004, September 10). Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld speaks about Iraq at the National Press Club in Washington. Retrieved September 11, 2009, from
...tion to the press, before his family yet again, the US Government was intentionally ambiguous when explaining their farce of an investigation: “investigation results indicate that Corporal Tillman probably died as a result of friendly fire while his unit was engaged in combat with enemy forces… (Page 361).”
...of the struggle over how the war would be remembered. Blanketed by the discourse of disability, the struggle over the memory of veterans and the country alike would be waged with such obliquity as to surpass even the most veiled operations of Nixon’s minions. While Nixon’s plumbers were wrenching together the Gainesville case against VVAW in the spring of 1972, mental health and news-media professionals were cobbling together the figure of the mentally incapacitated Vietnam veteran. More than any other, this image is the one that would stick in the minds of the American people. The psychologically damaged veteran raised a question that demanded an answer: what happened to our boys that was so traumatic that they were never the same again? As it came to be told, the story of what happened to them had less to do with the war itself than with the war against the war.
As a Wall Street Journal Pentagon correspondent, Thomas E. Ricks is one of America’s elite military journalists. He has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and awarded a Society of Professional Journalists Award for his writings based on the Marines. Thomas E. Ricks lectures to military officers and was a member of Harvard University’s Senior Advisory Council on the project on U.S. Civil-Military Relations. As a Pentagon correspondent, he can access information where no other civilian can step foot—traveling with soldiers abroad, his eyes tell the tale of the life of a Marine.
Clinton made strenuous efforts to avoid being shipped to Vietnam: he received education deferments while at Georgetown University and Oxford University, enrolled, but never joined, the Army ROTC, and, upon learning of his high draft lottery number, revoked his enrollment in the ROTC to entertain a career in politics. The letter written to the director of the ROTC program was leaked prior to the election of 1992. The 1992 election came during the wake of the so-called Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm ordered and successfully carried out during President George H.W. Bush’s administration. The American public, though not supportive at the onset of Desert Storm, came to appreciate Bush’s work in establishing American dominance in a post-Cold War world. Thus, considering the heightened degree of patriotism exhibited by the American people leading up to the election, the rhetorical barrier presented to Bill Clinton came in the form of his need to contest the negativity surrounding his draft-dodging during the Vietnam War. Clinton desperately needed to convince the American people to reject a value-based critique of the candidates in favor of an issue-based
His parents had owned over a one thousand acre ranch and he made various trips to the Civil War Battlefields with his father. Georgie decided when he was 10 years old; he wanted to become a famous and well -liked general. Patton had much respect and love for his father and even after all of his accomplishments as a general, Patton still came to his father's feet. He learned at a very late age as a child, and never learned basic skills such as proper spelling “Articles/biographies/military leaders/Patton/George S.”
Benjamin, who was thought to be a Patriot, stood and made a point as to why he should not join the war, and offered an alternative to war. By the end of the meeting, Martin said he would not agree to make a vote that allowed a war to go on in his backyard. Benjamin’s children were ashamed by their father’s words. The levy was passed, however, and Benjamin later caught up with Gabriel who was in line to enlist in the war. There was nothing he could do to change his son’s mind. Colonial Harry Burwell told Martin he’d take care of his son.
military, Clinton has not wavered on this issue. Bob Dole on the other hand has
There is speculation that there was an assassination attempt on George Bush the morning of the attack. When George Bush was on his morning jog, a van full of Middle Eastern men arrived at his hotel for a poolside interview and gave the name of a secret service agent that wasn’t heard of by another agent. When the men were redirected to the public relations office, the van turned away, ("An Interesting Day: President Bush's Movements and Actions on 9/11”). Bush was in Florida to promote his new education program. He was promoting it by listening to a second grade class read, “My Pet Goat”, at an elementary school in Sarasota, (“Global Research”). Bush claimed at a town hall meeting that he was aware of the first attack because he saw news coverage of it on a TV at the school (CNN.com-Transcripts). Many criticize Bush for his initial story to the attacks on the World Trade Center because the first crash was not broadcasted on live television therefore his story was considered false. Bush was also under heavy scrutiny for his lack of p...
On the morning of November 9th, 1963, two weeks before JFK was assassinated, right-wing extremist Joseph Milteer was in a Miami hotel room talking with Willie Somerset, an undercover police informant who happened to be wearing a wire. This conversation was turned over to the FBI immediately, although it would not surface publicly until four years later. Here is what Milteer had to say:
Kerry paints himself as a man who experienced the war, therefore he can reveal information
High-ranking army officers sheltered the proceedings at My Lai, until one combatant, Ron Riden Hour, overheard the incident second hand and composed it in a memo to President Richard Nixon. The letter was largely overlooked until late that year. Analytical reporter, Seymour Hersh got his hands on the story and cross-examined William Calley as soon as possible. The story broke out and hit front pages and headlines. In March 1970, an authoritative US Army inquiry board accused fourteen sergeants, including Calley and his company commander-in-chief, Captain Ernst Medina, of the misconduct involving My Lai ( My Lai Massacre Takes Place in Vietnam). Calley was personally condemned of murdering twenty-two individuals. In March 1971, Calley was given a life sentence for his role in leading the massacres at My Lai. Several saw Calley as a culprit, and his judgment was condensed upon appeal to twenty years and later to ten (My Lai Massacre).