{"id":1112,"date":"2004-02-17T11:28:52","date_gmt":"2004-02-17T18:28:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/uncategorized\/why-did-bush-stop-flying\/"},"modified":"2004-02-17T11:28:52","modified_gmt":"2004-02-17T18:28:52","slug":"why-did-bush-stop-flying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/dump-duhbya\/why-did-bush-stop-flying\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Did Bush Stop Flying?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.usatoday.com\/news\/_photos\/2004\/02\/15\/inside-bush.jpg\" alt=\"This undated photo shows President Bush as a Texas Air National Guard fighter pilot. He sits in the cockpit of an F-102 jet.\"\/><a title=\"USATODAY.com - Why Bush stopped flying remains a mystery\" href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/news\/politicselections\/nation\/president\/2004-02-15-bush-record_x.htm\">Why Bush stopped flying remains a mystery<\/a> By Dave Moniz and Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY<\/p>\n<p>The positive descriptions of Bush&#8217;s military service make his sudden decision to quit flying in the spring of 1972 \u2014 two years before his pilot commitment was up \u2014 all the more puzzling. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>* <b>Bush was accepted into pilot school even though he scored in the 25th percentile on a standardized test.<\/b> The test was given to all prospective pilots and there was no specific score that disqualified a candidate. <b>In addition, Bush had two arrests<\/b> for college pranks <b>and four traffic offenses<\/b> before applying for pilot training. Former and current military pilots say it was <b>uncommon<\/b> for an applicant to be approved for training with such a record. <\/p>\n<p>* <b>There is no record of a formal procedure called a &#8220;flying evaluation board,&#8221;<\/b> which normally would have been convened once Bush stopped flying in April 1972.<\/p>\n<p>* <b>Bush&#8217;s records do not show he was given another job in the Air Guard once he quit flying.<\/b> Pilots and Bush comrades say his records should reflect some type of new duties he was assigned. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>A contemporary of Bush, Dean Roome, a former Texas Air National Guard fighter pilot, was Bush&#8217;s roommate when they were flying in Houston. &#8230; During a telephone interview with USA TODAY in 2002, Roome described Bush&#8217;s career as <b>mercurial<\/b>; the first three years were outstanding, <b>the final two troubled<\/b>. <b>&#8220;You wonder if you know who George Bush is,&#8221;<\/b> Roome said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think he digressed after awhile,&#8221; he said. &#8220;In the first half, he was gung-ho. &#8230; <b>Where George failed was to fulfill his obligation as a pilot. It was an irrational time in his life.<\/b>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Contacted by e-mail <b>last week, Roome pulled back from those comments<\/b>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why Bush stopped flying remains a mystery By Dave Moniz and Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY The positive descriptions of Bush&#8217;s military service make his sudden decision to quit flying in the spring of 1972 \u2014 two years before his pilot commitment was up \u2014 all the more puzzling. &#8230; * Bush was accepted into pilot &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/dump-duhbya\/why-did-bush-stop-flying\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Why Did Bush Stop Flying?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dump-duhbya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}