Cheney: Obama Lied!

[A Theist]

Here's the link for festive ...see "Acceptance in National Guard", 1rst paragraph...I posted this link twice already but here it is again just for you...I don't even know why I'm bothering to post the link for a third time, you'll just deny it anyway.

I do appreciate you re-posting the link for me I must have missed it.

I'm not going to deny it. I'm going to explain why it's an inaccurate figure for demonstrating support for your claim, which is: The National Guard was not a safe haven for those seeking to avoid service in Vietnam.

Reading through your link and through the source of the 23,000/8,700 National Guardsmen issue again, it states:

However, military documents show during the Vietnam War, almost 23,000 Army and Air Guardsmen were called up for a year of active duty;

So, 23,000 Army and Air Guardsmen were called up for a year (note: this does not say EACH year) of active duty during Vietnam. This
does not mean 23,000 Guardsmen were sent to Vietnam, rather this means 23,000 Guardsmen were called for active duty during Vietnam. Which could mean being called up in response to a natural disaster or other things, like managing all those protests and race-riots the 1960's is so famous for. This 23,000 figure is simply the total number of active duty Guardsmen during Vietnam.

Some 8,700 were deployed to Vietnam.

Now this number, clearly states these troops were deployed to Vietnam. As I stated earlier, around 2.8 million men and women served in Vietnam from 1961 until 1974. If 8,700 of that 2.8 million were National Guardsmen, which is what this states, that is a very small minority of the overall people who served in Vietnam (0.3%).

The percent of Guardsmen on active duty AND sent to Vietnam is about 38%... Which means 62% of ACTIVE DUTY National Guardsmen were not sent to Vietnam, which is a far lower percentage than that of the other military branches who served in Vietnam.

But wait... it gets better...

However, all of this is not taking into account the Reserves.
So the percentage chance of joining the National Guard, being called to active duty, and thereafter being sent to Vietnam would drop either a little or a lot dependent upon the total number of Reservists during this time. A man could be in the National Guard, on reserve, not be one of those 23,000 called to active duty and not even face that 38% chance of being sent to Vietnam.

But, you're probably saying, "We don't know how many Reservists there were," right?

Well, I found a decent estimate from a reputable source: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=t...E7u8scr-tQ
The figure I'm using appears on table 3, page 10 of this PDF document. This is the proposed restructuring of reserve forces, presented by Secretary of Defense McNamara in 1965, as entered into the Congressional Record on March 25, 1965. This is an annual number, I'm going to be nice and only use the military requirement reserve forces, which does not include non-military personnel and is significantly larger.
Total number of National Guard Reservists in 1965 was (drumroll please): 261,000 for the Army National Guard Reserves, which does include Air Defense (Bush's department, so he's being counted, or rather would be in a couple years once he joined).
Because all the figures we're using up to this point are for the duration of the Vietnam War (1961-1974), this is somewhat of an issue. I'm reluctant to simply multiply the 261,000 reservists by the 13 years duration of the war, and looking at this source shows that McNamara wanted to expand the number of reservists significantly.

But certainly you can see, if only in 1965, there were 261,000 National Guard Reservists, and from 1961-1974 there were a total of 23,000 Active National Guardsmen, that a person's chances of joining the National Guard, getting called for active duty, and then being sent to Vietnam (a 38% chance once on active duty) are small.

Thereby, making the National Guard about as safe of a haven for those wishing to avoid service in Vietnam as could be. The fact that 8,700 Guardsmen did serve in Vietnam (from 1961-1974), is tiny in comparison to the ONE YEAR number of total National Guard Reservists, of 261,000 for 1965. Joining the National Guard was also legal and, in some circles, more socially palatable/acceptable than fleeing the country or facing criminal charges.

*TA DA*

ETA: I incorrectly identified McNamara as the Secretary of State, he was the Secretary of Defense, fixed it

All that effort and it still doesn't prove that Bush joined the Air National Guard to avoid the draft...Clinton on the other hand was a true draft dodger who organized anti war rallies in Great Britain...and then became commander in chief of the armed forces...there seems to be more of a hypocrisy coming from the left...