George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

As for Quayle's military service, he had enlisted in the Indiana National Guard on May
19, 1969, in the midst of a freeze on further recruiting which had been ordered because
the Indiana National Guard had exceeded its legally mandated full complement of
manpower. Guard service was popular among those threatened by the draft, since it
virtually guaranteed that service in Vietnam could be avoided. Dan Quayle had been
declared 1-A on May 25, 1969, when he was about to graduate from DePauw University.
Quayle-Pulliam family influence was instrumental in inducing National Guard Major
General Wendell Phillippi to admit Quayle and assign him to a desk job. At this time
Wendell Phillippi was also the managing editor of the Indianapolis News, a Pulliam
family property. [fn 43] Dan Quayle spent about one year in the National Guard working
as a reporter for the quarterly publication, Indiana National Guard, a sinecure.
In contrast with all this, Quayle campaigned as a "Vietnam-era veteran" and a warmonger
of apocalyptic proportions. He once told a gathering of fundamentalist preachers that a
nuclear war "would hurry Jesus's second coming" [fn 44] During the Gulf crisis and the
Iraq war of 1990-91, Quayle was the principal voice in the Bush Administration
threatening the use of nuclear weapons by the United States against Baghdad. This points
to Quayle's important role in cementing Bush's own Armageddon connection to the
apocalyptic-millenarian strata among the Protestant evangelical fundamentalists.
The power behind Dan Quayle is widely acknowledged to be his consort, Marilyn Tucker
Quayle. Mrs, Quayle has been described as a "prototype of the new-age political spouse:
an asset to her husband as a polished professional, not just a decorative surrogate." [fn
45] Mrs. Quayle comes from an evangelical family; her father, of Nineveh, Indiana,
believes that Satan is trying to destroy the world and agrees with Ronald Reagan that the
best president of his lifetime was "Silent Cal" Coolidge. Mrs. Quayle advocates the death
penalty and says she grew up in a home environment in which daily Bible study was a
duty for all. The Quayle family was Presbyterian at first, but later broke with this
denomination to gravitate towards the teachings of Houston, Texas spiritual leader
Colonel R.B. Thieme, whose taped messages were an institution in the Tucker household.
Marilyn's sister Nancy Tucker Northcott told a journalist that Thieme's taped sermons
were a constant background refrain in the Tucker home. Mrs. Tucker "played them all
day, every day." This sister also pointed out that Marilyn "uses some of [Thieme's]
Sunday school things.. in her home as a supplement for thir own church," which latter is a
branch of the Prebyterian Church of America. Marilyn Quayle herself endorsed R.B.
Thieme's devotional materials as "very good." But Quayle and his handlers have
attempted to distance the family from Thieme.
Colonel R.B. Thieme is the pastor of the Berachah Church, an interdenominationalfundamentalist
institution located in the Galleria neighborhood of Houston, Texas.
Thieme is a preacher of decidedly military cast who sometimes wears his World War II
US Army Air Force unform during his appearances in the pulpit. The Bulletin and Prayer
List for the Berachah Church stresses the military motif, with a quarter of its space being
devoted to parishioners who are on active duty with the US military. Thieme sees the
world approaching the end-time, and exhorts his congregation to "prepare for battle,"