....they don't know when to quit. And all of this has
no more merit than the puppy dog.
An honorable discharge and no record of disciplinary
action is the final answer.
Drills and meetings most of the time were nothing more
than social get togethers in the reserve outfit that I
belonged to. A phone call to a designated indivudual
explaining that you wouldn't be there was all that was
required to clear you from a missed schedule. No records
were kept of these calls, except that the attendance
records were marked "excused". These records were no more
than pencil logs, and how long they were maintained I
don't know.
I have heard from others that this was the same situation
in their Guard and/or Reserve Unit.
Early outs from Guard and Reserves was not uncommon, in
fact a routine administrative matter to accomodate
school or employment. In this regard, today, with all
of the pressures on troop strength, the active duty
AF has a program called Palace Chase to handle early outs.
This entire thing about his guard service reminds me of
a story about a Saturday morning inspection at an officer
cadet school in dusty Kansas. All the cadets has worked
hard to prepare. The Inspecting Officer made several trips
back and forth between the rows of bunks and lockers,
and had failed to find anything wrong. Suddenly he
stopped and backed up. He pointed at a bunk and instructed
his aide to "gig" that cadet as a grasshopper was on his
bunk. Exasperated, the cadet blurted out, "That's two
gigs, Sir, there's dust on the grasshoppers back".
Bush's guard duty attendance is the dust.