Following Rules, Finding Advantage

The Air Force told all units about the new rule in February but did not make it effective until May 1. Bradley applied for enlistment on Jan. 12 and enlisted on April 14. By July 6, 1967, he had finished at Oxford and started Officer Training School at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.

In interviews, Bradley said that he was unaware of the changing rules and that they had no influence on the timing of his application. He said he knew there were special favors available for athletes in the reserves and he explicitly directed the Knicks not to intercede. "I got into the Air Force Reserve," said Bradley, "on my own merit."

Bradley rejects any suggestion that he sought an out from Vietnam.

"Look, if the reserves are not an important component of the American military, they shouldn't exist," he said. "If the reserves are, then by serving in the reserves you're serving in the military, and that's what I did. That's how I fulfilled my obligation."

Some of the people who knew Bradley best in those days said it was only natural for him to make the choices he did.

"We didn't see this as a war that had any ethical basis at all," said Phil Jackson, Bradley's Knicks teammate and sometime roommate, who successfully appealed his own 1-A draft status. "And to go over just because other people were being drafted--it was not a matter of going over and fighting Nazi Germany or imperialist Japanese like World War II."

Bradley's choices, Jackson said, were calculated. "I think he knew that some day he was going to be in public office, and he wanted to be comfortable with what he'd done in his past, not to have to dodge innuendos."

An 'Outstanding' Reservist

From his arrival at officer training, Bradley performed at his lifelong norm. Of 882 graduates of Lackland's Class 68-B, Bradley was chosen the group commander. Bridges, his first supervisor at McGuire, said that "he's the only Air Force reservist to my knowledge to ever do that" in competition with those training for active duty service.

In a succession of administrative and personnel jobs at McGuire, Bradley won admiration of superiors and subordinates. Occasionally even the superiors showed signs of being star-struck, such as when Jackson, the wing commander, arranged for his sons--then in high school and college--to dine with Bradley at the officers club. "They were thrilled, I can tell you that," said Julia Jackson, the commander's widow.

When his Air Force duty followed closely on an out-of-town game, recalled retired Col. Donald Rosencranz, one of Bradley's commanders, he would fly all night, "pull up in a little rented car, and hanging in the car on clothes hooks were his last night's Knicks uniform. We used to kid him. It smelled like a gymnasium."

At least 15 times from 1970 to 1972--the only period for which records survive--Bradley asked to be excused from required weekend duty for Knicks games or personal travel during the summer. Invariably in his request forms he couched his reasons as a "business meeting" or "business conference" to match the language of the rule allowing substitute dates.