[DeltAlum]

I'm so sick of this debate that I'm not going to read the whole thing.

There is one thing that I'll point out though after skimming the first couple of posts.

Everyone in the military service in those days was in for six years. Depending on what branch, it could be two years of active duty and four year of ready or inactive reserves (if drafted by the Army), three years active and three years reserves (joined the Army) or four years active and two years reserves (joined any of the other services). Only the Army drafted.

I have tried to figure out how President Bush became an officer. I haven't seen anywhere that he was in ROTC or OCS. Same with Kerry. I just don't know.

However, you can't concentrate on Kerry's four months actually in combat and assume that that was his entire military career. Both would have had to complete some kind of boot camp and additional schooling for their specialties.

For special circumstances, one could get out of active duty early (something like going to college), but generally by only a few months.

Bottom line is this: Assuming there were no really sneaky strings pulled (nothing would surprize me, though), Kerry signed up for a mininum of four years of active duty and Bush for six months. I'm sure that to get into pilot training, the President had to commit to some additional time -- but probably not four years.