RadioBanter - Why did Bush run away from service in Vietnam?

Marginal Trivia "King Pineapple" wrote in message
news:cWV2ZXJ5.4386d9539af5252e9c63fa094a6fb7ae@105 8658944.cotse.net...
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

Were George W. Bush's National Guard Records Scrubbed?

The Real Military Record of George W. Bush: Not Heroic, but Not AWOL,
Either
By Peter Keating and Karthik Thyagarajan

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For more than a year, controversy about George W. Bush's Air National Guard
record has bubbled through the press. Interest in the topic has spiked in
recent days, as at least two websites have launched stories essentially
calling Bush AWOL in 1972 and 1973. For example, in "Finally, the Truth
about Bush's Military Record" on TomPaine.com, Marty Heldt writes, "Bush's
long absence from the records comes to an end one week after he failed to
comply with an order to attend 'Annual Active Duty Training' starting at the
end of May 1973... Nothing indicates in the records that he ever made up the
time he missed." And in Bush's Military Record Reveals Grounding and Absence
for Two Full Years" on Democrats.com, Robert A. Rogers states: "Bush never
actually reported in person for the last two years of his service - in
direct violation of two separate written orders."

Neither is correct.

It's time to set the record straight. The following analysis, which relies
on National Guard documents, extensive interviews with military officials
and previously unpublished evidence of Bush's whereabouts in the summer and
fall of 1972, is the first full chronology of Bush's military record. Its
basic conclusions: Bush may have received favorable treatment to get into
the Guard, served irregularly after the spring of 1972 and got an expedited
discharge, but he did accumulate the days of service required of him for his
ultimate honorable discharge.

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At the Republican convention in Philadelphia, George W. Bush declared: "Our
military is low on parts, pay and morale. If called on by the
commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to
report, 'Not ready for duty, sir.'" Bush says he is the candidate who can
"rebuild our military and prepare our armed forces for the future." On what
direct military experience does he make such claims?

George W. Bush applied to join the Texas Air National Guard on May 27, 1968,
less than two weeks before he graduated from Yale University. The country
was at war in Vietnam, and at that time, just months after the bloody Tet
Offensive, an estimated 100,000 Americans were on waiting lists to join
Guard units across the country. Bush was sworn in on the day he applied.

Ben Barnes, former speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, stated in
September 1999 that in late 1967 or early 1968, he asked a senior official
in the Texas Air National Guard to help Bush get into the Guard as a pilot.
Barnes said he did so at the behest of Sidney Adger, a Houston businessman
and friend of former President George H. W. Bush, then a Texas congressman.
Despite Barnes's admission, former President Bush has denied pulling strings
for his son, and retired Colonel Walter Staudt, George W. Bush's first
commander, insists: "There was no special treatment."

The younger Bush fulfilled two years of active duty and completed pilot
training in June 1970. During that time and in the two years that followed,
Bush flew the F-102, an interceptor jet equipped with heat-seeking missiles
that could shoot down enemy planes. His commanding officers and peers
regarded Bush as a competent pilot and enthusiastic Guard member. In March
1970, the Texas Air National Guard issued a press release trumpeting his
performance: "Lt. Bush recently became the first Houston pilot to be trained
by the 147th [Fighter Group] and to solo in the F-102... Lt. Bush said his
father was just as excited and enthusiastic about his solo flight as he
was." In Bush's evaluation for the period May 1, 1971 through April 30,
1972, then-Colonel Bobby Hodges, his commanding officer, stated, "I have
personally observed his participation, and without exception, his
performance has been noteworthy." In the spring of 1972, however, National
Guard records show a sudden dropoff in Bush's military activity. Though
trained as a pilot at considerable government expense, Bush stopped flying
in April 1972 and never flew for the Guard again.

Around that time, Bush decided to go to work for Winton "Red" Blount, a
Republican running for the U.S. Senate, in Alabama. Documents from Ellington
Air Force Base in Houston state that Bush "cleared this base on 15 May."
Shortly afterward, he applied for assignment to the 9921st Air Reserve
Squadron in Montgomery, Ala., a unit that required minimal duty and offered
no pay. Although that unit's commander was willing to welcome him, on May 31
higher-ups at the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver rejected Bush's
request to serve at the 9921st, because it did not offer duty equivalent to
his service in Texas. "[A]n obligated Reservist [in this case, Bush] can be
assigned to a specific Ready Reserve position only," noted the disapproval
memo, a copy of which was sent to Bush. "Therefore, he is ineligible for
assignment to an Air Reserve Squadron."

Despite the military's decision, Bush moved to Alabama. Records obtained by
Georegemag.com show that the Blount Senate campaign paid Bush about $900 a
month from mid-May through mid-November to do advance work and organize
events. Neither Bush's annual evaluation nor the Air National Guard's
overall chronological listing of his service contain any evidence that he
performed Guard duties during that summer.

On or around his 27th birthday, July 6, 1972, Bush did not take his required
annual medical exam at his Texas unit. As a consequence, he was suspended
from flying military jets. Bush spokesperson Dan Bartlett told
Georgemag.com: "You take that exam because you are flying, and he was not
flying. The paperwork uses the phrase 'suspended from flying,' but he had no
intention of flying at that time."

Some media reports have speculated that Bush took and failed his physical,
or that he was grounded as a result of substance abuse. Bush's vagueness on
the subject of his past drug use has only abetted such rumors. Bush's
commanding officer in Texas, however, denies the charges. "His flying status
was suspended because he didn't take the exam,not because he couldn't pass,"
says Hodges. Asked whether Bush was ever disciplined for using alcohol or
illicit drugs, Hodges replied: "No."

On September 5, Bush wrote to then-Colonel Jerry Killian at his original
unit in Texas, requesting permission to serve with the 187th Tactical
Reconnaisance Group, another Alabama-based unit. "This duty would be for the
months of September, October, and November," wrote Bush.

This time his request was approved: 10 days later, the Alabama Guard ordered
Bush to report to then-Lieutenant Colonel William Turnipseed at Dannelly Air
Force Base in Montgomery on October 7th and 8th. The memo noted that
"Lieutenant Bush will not be able to satisfy his flight requirements with
our group," since the 187th did not fly F-102s.

The question of whether Bush ever actually served in Alabama has become an
issue in the 2000 campaign-the Air Force Times recently reported that "the
GOP is trying to locate people who served with Bush in late 1972 ... to see
if they can confirm that Bush briefly served with the Alabama Air National
Guard." Bush's records contain no evidence that he reported to Dannelly in
October. And in telephone interviews with Georgemag.com, neither Turnipseed,
Bush's commanding officer, nor Kenneth Lott, then chief personnel officer of
the 187th, remembered Bush serving with their unit. "I don't think he showed
up," Turnipseed said.

Bush maintains he did serve in Alabama. "Governor Bush specifically
remembers pulling duty in Montgomery and respectfully disagrees with the
Colonel," says Bartlett. "There's no question it wasn't memorable, because
he wasn't flying." In July, the Decatur Daily reported that two former
Blount campaign workers recall Bush serving in the Alabama Air National
Guard in the fall of 1972. "I remember he actually came back to Alabama for
about a week to 10 days several weeks after the campaign was over to
complete his Guard duty in the state," stated Emily Martin, a former Alabama
resident who said she dated Bush during the time he spent in that state.

After the 1972 election, which Blount lost, Bush moved back to Houston and
subsequently began working at P.U.L.L., a community service center for
disadvantaged youths. This period of time has also become a matter of
controversy, because even though Bush's original unit had been placed on
alert duty in October 1972, his superiors in Texas lost track of his
whereabouts. On May 2, 1973, Bush's squadron leader in the 147th, Lieutenant
Colonel William Harris, Jr. wrote: "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this
unit" for the past year. Harris incorrectly assumed that Bush had been
reporting for duty in Alabama all along. He wrote that Bush "has been
performing equivalent training in a non-flying status with the 187 Tac Recon
Gp, Dannelly ANG Base, Alabama." Base commander Hodges says of Bush's return
to Texas: "All I remember is someone saying he came back and made up his
days."

Two documents obtained by Georgemag.com indicate that Bush did make up the
time he missed during the summer and autumn of 1972. One is an April 23,
1973 order for Bush to report to annual active duty training the following
month; the other is an Air National Guard statement of days served by Bush
that is torn and undated but contains entries that correspond to the first.
Taken together, they appear to establish that Bush reported for duty on nine
occasions between November 29, 1972-when he could have been in Alabama-and
May 24, 1973. Bush still wasn't flying, but over this span, he did earn nine
points of National Guard service from days of active duty and 32 from
inactive duty. When added to the 15 so-called "gratuitous" points that every
member of the Guard got per year, Bush accumulated 56 points, more than the
50 that he needed by the end of May 1973 to maintain his standing as a
Guardsman.

On May 1, Bush was ordered to report for further active duty training, and
documents show that he proceeded to cram in another 10 sessions over the
next two months. Ultimately, he racked up 19 active duty points of service
and 16 inactive duty points by July 30-which, added to his 15 gratuitous
points, achieved the requisite total of 50 for the year ending in May 1974.

On October 1, 1973, First Lieutenant George W. Bush received an early
honorable discharge so that he could attend Harvard Business School. He was
credited with five years, four months and five days of service toward his
six-year service obligation