Bush's Military Service

"I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment, nor was I willing to go to Canada, so I chose to better myself by learning to fly airplanes."

- George W. Bush, interview with Houston Chronicle 1994

Q: Were the odds in favor of you not going to Vietnam, by being in the [National] Guard, versus the regular Army, or the Navy or the Air Force?

A: Absolutely, I concede that point.

- CNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews", August 24, 1999

Chronology and Timeline:

January, 1968 Bush about to graduate from Yale

- knowing he was eligible for the draft, he took an air force officers' test to secure a billet with the Texas Air National Guard;

- did poorly on the test--on the pilot aptitude section, he scored in the 25th percentile, the lowest possible passing grade;

- Bush's father, George H.W., was then a U.S. congressman from Houston;

- GWB vaulted to the head of a long waiting list--a year and a half long, by some estimates;

May, 1968: GWB was inducted into the Texas Air National Guard;

1972: 4 years into his 6-year guard commitment, he was asked to work for campaign fo Bush family friend Winton Blount, running for US Senate (Ala);

May, 1972: Bush requested a transfer to an Alabama Air National Guard unit with no planes and minimal duties. Bush's immediate superiors approved the transfer, but higher-ups said no. The matter was delayed for months;

April, 1972: Pentagon institutes random drug screening;

August, 1972: Bush failed to show for his annual flight physical and was grounded. (Some have speculated that he was worried about failing a drug test--the Pentagon had instituted random screening in April.)

September, 1972: GWB ordered to report to a different unit of the Alabama guard, the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group in Montgomery. Bush says he did so, but his nominal superiors say they never saw the guy, there's no documentation he ever showed up, and not one of the six or seven hundred soldiers then in the unit has stepped forward to corroborate Bush's story.

May 2, 1973: His annual performance report noted he had "not been observed at this unit" for the past year.

1973: GWB requested and was granted an Honorable Discharge to attend Harvard Business School

- discharge was 8 months prior to the scheduled end of his duty;

DETAILS:

From May to November 1972, George W. Bush was living in Alabama working on the US senate campaign of Winton Blount and was required to attend drills with the Air National Guard unit in Montgomery, Alabama. There is no record that he attended any drills whatsoever. Additionally, General William Turnipseed (r) who was commander of the unit at that time has stated in interviews that he never saw Bush report for duty.

On September 5, 1972, Bush had requested permission to perform duty for September, October, and November at the 187th Tactical Recon Group in Montgomery. Permission was granted, and Bush was ordered to report to General William Turnipseed. In interviews, Turnipseed, and his administrative officer at the time, Kenneth K. Lott, have stated that they had no memory of Bush ever reporting.

Seven months later, at Ellington Air Force Base in Texas, Bush's two superior officers were unable to complete his annual evaluation covering the year from May 1, 1972 to April 30, 1973 because, "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of this report." Both superior officers, who are now dead, and also Ellington's top personnel officer at the time, mistakenly concluded that Bush served his final year of service in Alabama. Bush returned to live in Texas after the senatorial election in November, 1972, so this is obviously not true.

According to the records available from the National Guard, the period between May 1972 and May 1973 remains unaccounted for. George W. Bush himself has refused to answer questions about this period in his life, other than to state that he fulfilled all of his National Guard commitments. If this were true, why is there no record of him fulfilling these commitments at either of his posts in Texas or Alabama? Why is there not one commanding officer that can come forward and state unequivocally that Bush reported for duty?

If the allegations are true that Bush deserted his country during a time of war, this is one of the gravest offenses one can commit against their country, short of treason. This is why there is no Statute of Limitations concerning these crimes. My father served proudly as a field surgeon in Vietnam, and it distresses me greatly that a person could use his family's influence and power to not only avoid the draft for service, but then to not fulfill the duties that he was assigned in substitute for serving in Vietnam.

These crimes are not to be taken lightly, and I believe that all men and women who serve America proudly would be shocked that a soldier was allowed to abuse the system in the way that George W. Bush allegedly has. These charges warrant investigation, and until a satisfactory record of Bush's service is produced, I can only assume that Bush did indeed desert his country in a time of war.

in 2000, The Boston Globe obtained copies of Bush's military records and discovered that he had stopped flying during his final 18 months of service in 1972 and 1973. More curious, the records showed Bush had not reported for Guard duty during a long stretch of that period. Had the future commander-in-chief been AWOL?

Bush left Houston May 15, 1972 and went to work on a political campaign in Alabama. His first request for a transfer on May 24 was denied because the unit was inactive. His second request on September 5 to a different unit was granted. He was issued a direct order to report on specific days to the base, which he completely ignored. The order was issued on September 15 to report to then-Lieutenant Colonel William Turnipseed at Dannelly Air Force base in Montgomery, AL, on the dates of "7-8 October 0730-1600, and 4-5 November 0730-1600" His orders, dated Sept. 15, 1972, said: "Lieutenant Bush should report to Lt. Col. William Turnipseed, DCO, to perform equivalent training." [Boston Globe 5/23/00] http://www.cis.net/~coldfeet/doc11.gif

· His Commanding Officer, William Turnipseed, says he did not show up.

"To my knowledge, he never showed up," Turnipseed said last month. [Boston Globe 5/23/00] In interviews last week, Turnipseed and his administrative officer at the time, Kenneth K. Lott, said they had no memory of Bush ever reporting. ''Had he reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not,'' Turnipseed said. ''I had been in Texas, done my flight training there. If we had had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would have remembered.'' Turnipseed also reports that the then-squadron operations officer of the Alabama Guard also has no recollection of having seen Bush.(The New Republic 10/16/2000)

"Furthermore, a spokesman for the Alabama National Guard estimates there were 600 to 700 members in the unit Bush was supposed to have served with in 1972. But none of these men has ever come forward to say he remembers Bush, and Bush has not named a single one of them."(The New Republic 10/16/2000)

· There is no official National Guard record for George W. Bush's service in Alabama.

"His official discharge records do not include any service after May 15 of 1972. Indeed, Bush's discharge papers list his service and duty station for each of his first four years in the Air Guard. But there is no record of training listed after May 1972, and no mention of any service in Alabama. On that discharge form, Lloyd (Albert Lloyd Jr., a retired colonel who was the Texas Air Guard's personnel director from 1969 to 1995 and was hired by the Bush campaign to make sense of the governor's military records) said, ''there should have been an entry for the period between May 1972 and May 1973.'' Said Lloyd, ''It appeared he had a bad year. He might have lost interest, since he knew he was getting out.'' [Boston Globe 5/23/00]

· No one in the Alabama National Guard ever saw him.

"A spokesman for the Alabama National Guard estimates there were 600 to 700 members in the unit Bush was supposed to have served with in 1972. But none of these men has ever come forward to say he remembers Bush, and Bush has not named a single one of them." (The New Republic 10/16/2000)

Even though members of the Alabama Air National Guard have offered $1000 to anyone who can remember serving with Bush, no one has come forward to corroborate his service, with the exception of an old girlfriend who says she remembers him saying he was going, but does not have any other evidence, essentially making it her word against Bush's commanding officers' and a lack of official documents as noted above.

· Even the Bush campaign claims that he only showed up on a single day in November and made up missed weekends, not contesting the fact that he defied direct orders to appear on the dates stated above.

"National Guard records provided by the Guard and by the Bush campaign indicate he did serve on Nov. 29, 1972, after the election. These records also show a gap in service from that time to the previous May. Mr. Bush says he made up for the lost time in subsequent months, and guard records show he received credit for having performed all the required service." [NYT 7/22/00]

The evidence to support Bush's service on November 29, 1972 is highly suspect for the following reasons:

- The document offered to dispute the claim by his commanding officers in Alabama is a single torn document that does not have Bush's name on it, is undated and unsigned. The document was "discovered" in 1998 by the man Bush hired to investigate his record, Al Loyd, and added to the official record. This late addition to the official record also raises additional chain of command issues.

- There are two different versions of the document. The one 'discovered' by Mr. Loyd and given to George Magazine has handwritten annotations. The other version came from Mr. Bush's official record through a FOIA request by Martin Heldt. http://www.cis.net/~coldfeet/doc99.gif The FOIA version did not have any annotations.

- The document comes from the Texas National Guard Archives according to the numbering in the right hand corner of the document, even though duty reports were localized at the time, meaning his service in Alabama would not have been recorded by the Texas Air National Guard.

#2 Bush didn't return to Ellington Air Force Base after his temporary transfer as required.

A Bush spokesman, Dan Bartlett, said after talking with the governor that Bush recalls performing some duty in Alabama and ''recalls coming back to Houston and doing [Guard] duty, though he does not recall if it was on a consistent basis.''

Noting that Bush, by that point, was no longer flying, Bartlett added, ''It's possible his presence and role became secondary.'' [Boston Globe 5/23/00]

The Truth

· According to his annual evaluation by his commanding officers, he may have been in Houston but he was not at the base.

"Cleared this base 15 May 1972" According to Lieutenant Colonel William Harris Jr. and Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Killian in Bush's annual evaluation , Ellis Air Force Base, Houston. The report makes clear that Bush had "not been observed " at his Texas unit "during the period of this report" - May 1972-April 1973." [Boston Globe 5/23/00]

· Even his commanding officer, whom he called a "friend" did not know where he was.

"Asked about that declaration, campaign spokesman Bartlett said Bush told him that since he was no longer flying, he was doing ''odds and ends'' under different supervisors whose names he could not recall. But retired colonel Martin, the unit's former administrative officer, said he too thought Bush had been in Alabama for that entire year. Harris and Killian, he said, would have known if Bush returned to duty at Ellington. And Bush, in his autobiography, identifies the late colonel Killian as a friend, making it even more likely that Killian knew where Bush was." [Boston Globe 5/23/00]

#3 He quit flying in Texas because his plane was replaced.

In his autobiography, Mr. Bush explains that when he applied to Harvard Business School in 1972, "I was almost finished with my commitment in the Air National Guard, and was no longer flying because the F102 jet I has trained in was being replaced by a different fighter."

The Truth

· "His unit continued to fly the F-102 until 1974 [Boston Globe 5/23/00] "If he had come back to Houston, I would have kept him flying the 102 until he got out" said retired Major Bobby W. Hodges, "But I don't remember him coming back at all"'.

· "Lieutenant Bush, to be sure, had gone off flying status when he went to Alabama. But had he returned to his unit in November 1972, there would have been no barrier to him flying again, except passing a flight physical. Although the F-102 was being phased out, his unit's records show that Guard pilots logged thousands of hours in the F-102 in 1973."[Boston Globe 5/23/00]

· His commitment was through May of 1974. (An exaggeration?)

#4 He wasn't flying in Alabama because they had different planes.

On June 26th this report appeared in the Dallas Morning News. "Campaigning Friday in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Bush was asked about his 1972 service in that state. "I was there on a temporary assignment and fulfilled my weekends at one period of time," he said. "I made up some missed weekends." "I can't remember what I did, but I wasn't flying because they didn't have the same airplanes. I fulfilled my obligations."

The Truth

· He was no longer flying because he had been suspended in August of 1972 for failure to "accomplish" a required medical exam. [Boston Globe, 5/23/00] (Suspension document at http://www.cis.net/~coldfeet/grounded.gif)

· Bush was suspended from flying on August 1, 1972, prior to his request for the transfer to the187th at Montgomery Alabama, September 5, 1972. Bush did not receive permission until September 15, which was close to six weeks after his suspension from flying.

· Another question is raised by the fact that he cannot remember what he did for the Air National Guard in Alabama, despite the fact that 28 years later he still remembers the specifics of his work there on the campaign of William Blount as cited in a July 22, 2000 New York Times article. "In an interview 28 years later, Mr. Bush remembered the numbers. "We all teamed together and helped Red get about 36 percent of the vote," he said with a short laugh, "in spite of the fact that Nixon had gotten 72 percent of the vote. The ticket-splitting was phenomenal.""

#5 Three different stories on why he was suspended.

Story #1) "Bush's campaign aides have said he did not take the physical because he was in Alabama and his personal physician was in Houston." [Boston Globe 5/23/00].

The Truth

· In fact as the Boston Globe goes on to state "flight physicals can be administered only by certified Air Force flight surgeons, and some were assigned at the time to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, where Bush was living."

Story #2) Then in June, campaign officials told the London Times Bush did not technically need to take his flight physical. "As he was not flying, there was no reason for him to take the flight physical exam," according to campaign spokesman Don Bartlett.

· Any suggestion that he had simply decided to "give up flying" prior to his suspension, with two years remaining on his commitment and nearly one million dollars (in real terms) invested in his training is not plausible. It is not up to an Air National Guard pilot to decide whether or not he "intends" to fly.

· "If he had come back to Houston, I would have kept him flying the 102 until he got out" said retired Major Bobby W. Hodges [Boston Glove 5/23/00]

Story #3) In the same article, Bush campaign spokesman Dan Bartlett told the newspaper that Bush was aware back then that he would be suspended for missing his medical exam, but had no choice because he had applied for a transfer from Houston to Alabama and his paperwork hadn't caught up with him. "It was just a question of following the bureaucratic procedure of the time," Bartlett said. "He knew the suspension would have to take place."

· The exam was required to be completed in the three months preceding his birthday, July 6, 1972. A three month window seems adequate to avoid being suspended from flying.

So which is it: his family physician, he didn't have to take the exam, or a bureaucratic snafu?

#6 Bush denied strings were pulled to get him in the Texas Air National Guard.

"I can just tell you, from my perspective, I never asked for, I don't believe I received special treatment," Bush told reporters." [DMN 9/08/99]

The Truth

· "Former Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes confirmed Monday that he recommended Gov. George W. Bush for a slot in the Texas Air National Guard during the height of the Vietnam War, at the request of a Bush family friend. Mr. Barnes' account came in a written statement that was released after he testified in a deposition stemming from a federal lawsuit.' [DMN 9/28/99]

· "The statement by Mr. Barnes also confirmed that he met a year ago with a top Bush adviser to discuss the Guard matter. As reported in The News, Mr. Bush sent a note thanking Mr. Barnes for his help in rebutting rumors that Mr. Bush's father helped his son find a Guard slot, the statement confirmed." [DMN 9/08/99]

· "Mr. Barnes was contacted by [Houston businessman] Sid Adger and asked to recommend George W. Bush for a pilot position with the Air National Guard," Mr. Barnes' statement said. "Barnes called Gen. [James] Rose and did so." [DMN 9/28/00]

"No Bush ever asked Sid Adger to help," the governor said.[DMN 9/28/00]

· "A spokeswoman for former President George Bush confirmed the elder Bush's friendship with Mr. Adger but said he was "almost positive" he never talked to Mr. Adger - or anyone else - about getting his son into the Guard. "He said he is fairly certain - I mean he doesn't remember everything that happened in the 1960s - but he said he and Sid Adger never, ever talked about George W. and the Texas Air National Guard," said Jean Becker, a spokeswoman for the former president. "President Bush knew Sid Adger well," Ms. Becker said. "He loved him."' [DMN 9/08/99]

· "When Bush was admitted into the Guard in 1968, 100,000 other men were on waiting lists around the country, hoping to win admission to similar units. The Guard was popular because those units were rarely sent to Vietnam." [LAT 7/4/99]

#7 Bush said the Texas Air National Guard was short on pilots.

"They were looking for pilots, and I was honored to serve.", Governor Bush told the Dallas Morning News. [DMN9/08/99]

The Truth

· "But Tom Hail, a historian for the Texas Air National Guard, said that records do not show a pilot shortage in the Guard squadron at the time. Hail, who reviewed the unit's personnel records for a special Guard museum display on Gov. Bush's service, said Bush's unit had 27 pilots at the time he began applying. While that number was two short of its authorized strength, the unit had two other pilots who were in training and another awaiting a transfer. There was no apparent need to fast-track applicants, he said." [LAT 7/4/99]

· "The Texas Air Guard had about 900 slots for pilots, air and ground crew members, supervisors, technicians and support staff. Sgt. Donald Dean Barnhart, who still serves in the Guard, said that he kept a waiting list of about 150 applicants' names. He said it took up to a year and a half for one name to move to the top of the list. "Quite a few gentlemen were wanting to get in," he recalled. For Bush, there was no wait. He met with commander Staudt in his Houston office and made his application--all before his graduation in June." [LAT, 7/4/99]

"Beckwith, Bush's spokesman, painted a different picture. He said that the Guard needed pilots at the time and Bush was available. "A lot of people weren't qualified" or willing to fly, he said, so special commissions were offered to those willing to undergo the extra training required."

[LAT 7/4/99]

· "But Shoemake, who also served as a chief of personnel in the Texas Guard from 1972 to 1980, remembers no pilot shortage. "We had so many people coming in who were super-qualified," he said." [LAT 7/4/99]

· "Records from his [Bush's] military file show that in January 1968, after inquiring about Guard admission, Mr. Bush went to an Air Force recruiting office near Yale, where he took and passed the test required by the Air Force for pilot trainees. His score on the pilot aptitude section, one of five on the test, was in the 25th percentile, the lowest allowed for would-be fliers." [7/4/99]

#8 There was no special deal when he received a direct appointment to second lieutenant right after basic training, with no qualifications.

"Officials in Bush's presidential campaign denied last week that he was treated differently from other recruits. "Our information is there was absolutely no special deal," said spokesman David Beckwith." [LAT 7/4/99]

"He [Commander Staudt] recommended Bush for a direct appointment--a special process that would allow the young recruit to become a second lieutenant right out of basic training without having to go through the rigors of officer candidate school. The process also cleared the way for a slot in pilot training school." [LAT, 7/4/99]

The Truth

· "But Charles C. Shoemake, an Air Force veteran who later joined the Texas Air National Guard, eventually retiring as a full colonel, said that direct appointments were rare and hard to get, and required extensive credentials. "I went from master sergeant to first lieutenant based on my three years in college and 15 years as a noncommissioned officer. Then I got considered for a direct appointment." Even then, he said, "I didn't know whether I was going to get into pilot training."" [LAT 7/4/99]

· "As for a direct commission for someone of Bush's limited qualifications, Hail said, "I've never heard of that. Generally they did that for doctors only, mostly because we needed extra flight surgeons."" [LAT 7/4/99]

#9 As evidence he wasn't dodging combat, Mr. Bush has pointed to his efforts to try to volunteer for a program that rotated Guard pilots to Vietnam, although he wasn't called. [DMN 7/4/99]

The Truth

· "Mr. Bush's application for the Guard included a box to be checked specifying whether he did or did not volunteer for overseas duty. His includes a check mark in the box not wanting to volunteer for such an assignment." [DMN 7/4/99]

#10 In Bush's 1999 autobiography, A Charge to Keep, Mr. Bush says that after completing flight training in June 1970, "I continued flying with my unit for the next several years".

The Truth

· "But 22 months after finishing his training, and with two years left on his six-year commitment, Bush gave up flying - for good, it would turn out". [Boston Globe, 5/23/00]

Several Years or 22 months - an exaggeration? Perhaps, the bigger question is why did he quit flying?

* The New York Times reports that Bush has had problems articulating words recently, using "terriers" instead of "tariffs and trade barriers," "obsfucate" in place of "obfuscate," and "post-cold world" rather than "post-Cold War world." [Bruni, New York Times, 1/8/00]

GLOBE: BUSH DIDN'T MEET GUARD COMMITMENTS

President Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, the BOSTON GLOBE is planning to front on Wednesday, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE.

The 1,500 word expose on Bush's records comes just hours ahead of an exclusive CBSNEWS interview set to air Wednesday night with a man who secured for the 22-year-old Yale graduate Bush a coveted place in the Guard -- a man who now claims he regrets helping Bush.

The GLOBE claims: "Twice during his Guard service - first when he joined in May 1968, and again before he transferred out of his unit in mid-1973 to attend Harvard Business School - Bush signed documents pledging to meet training commitments or face a punitive call-up to active duty.

"He didn't meet the commitments, or face the punishment, the records show."

After laying dormant for most of the summer, big media picks up where it left off on the Bush national guard issue in a post-Labor Day filing frenzy.

In the next hours and days, the ASSOCIATED PRESS, CBSNEWS, BOSTON GLOBE and NBCNEWS [who will host Bush author Kitty Kelley on Monday] will revisit Bush National Guard.

The upcoming reexamination of Bush's records by the GLOBE show that Bush's attendance at required training drills "was so irregular that his superiors could have disciplined him or ordered him to active duty in 1972, 1973, or 1974. But they did neither. In fact, Bush's unit certified in late 1973 that his service had been "satisfactory" - just four months after Bush's commanding officer wrote that Bush had not been seen at his unit for the previous 12 months."

Missing in Action

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: September 8, 2004

President Bush claims that in the fall of 1972, he fulfilled his Air National Guard duties at a base in Alabama. But Bob Mintz was there - and he is sure Mr. Bush wasn't.

Plenty of other officers have said they also don't recall that Mr. Bush ever showed up for drills at the base. What's different about Mr. Mintz is that he remembers actively looking for Mr. Bush and never finding him.

Mr. Mintz says he had heard that Mr. Bush - described as a young Texas pilot with political influence - had transferred to the base. He heard that Mr. Bush was also a bachelor, so he was looking forward to partying together. He's confident that he'd remember if Mr. Bush had shown up.

"I'm sure I would have seen him," Mr. Mintz said yesterday. "It's a small unit, and you couldn't go in or out without being seen. It was too close a space." There were only 25 to 30 pilots there, and Mr. Bush - a U.N. ambassador's son who had dated Tricia Nixon - would have been particularly memorable.

I've steered clear until now of how Mr. Bush evaded service in Vietnam because I thought other issues were more important. But if Bush supporters attack John Kerry for his conduct after he volunteered for dangerous duty in Vietnam, it's only fair to scrutinize Mr. Bush's behavior.

It's not a pretty sight. Mr. Bush was saved from active duty, and perhaps Vietnam, only after the speaker of the Texas House intervened for him because of his family's influence.

Mr. Bush signed up in May 1968 for a six-year commitment, justifying the $1 million investment in training him as a pilot. But after less than two years, Mr. Bush abruptly stopped flying, didn't show up for his physical and asked to transfer to Alabama. He never again flew a military plane.

Mr. Bush insists that after moving to Alabama in 1972, he served out his obligation at Dannelly Air National Guard Base in Montgomery (although he says he doesn't remember what he did there). The only officer there who recalls Mr. Bush was produced by the White House - he remembers Mr. Bush vividly, but at times when even Mr. Bush acknowledges he wasn't there.

In contrast, Mr. Mintz is a compelling witness. Describing himself as "a very strong military man," he served in the military from 1959 to 1984. A commercial pilot, he is now a Democrat but was a Republican for most of his life, and he is not a Bush-hater. When I asked him whether the National Guard controversy raises questions about Mr. Bush's credibility, Mr. Mintz said only, "That's up to the American people to decide."

In his first interview with a national news organization, Mr. Mintz recalled why he remembered Mr. Bush as a no-show: "Young bachelors were kind of sparse. For that reason, I was looking for someone to haul around with." Why speak out now? He said, "After a lot of soul-searching, I just feel it's my duty to stand up and do the right thing."

Another particularly credible witness is Leonard Walls, a retired Air Force colonel who was then a full-time pilot instructor at the base. "I was there pretty much every day," he said, adding: "I never saw him, and I was there continually from July 1972 to July 1974." Mr. Walls, who describes himself as nonpolitical, added, "If he had been there more than once, I would have seen him."

The sheer volume of missing documents, and missing recollections, strongly suggests to me that Mr. Bush blew off his Guard obligations. It's not fair to say Mr. Bush deserted. My sense is that he (like some others at the time) neglected his National Guard obligations, did the bare minimum to avoid serious trouble and was finally let off by commanders who considered him a headache but felt it wasn't worth the hassle to punish him.

"The record clearly and convincingly proves he did not fulfill the obligations he incurred when he enlisted in the Air National Guard," writes Gerald Lechliter, a retired Army colonel who has made the most meticulous examination I've seen of Mr. Bush's records (I've posted the full 32-page analysis here). Mr. Lechliter adds that Mr. Bush received unauthorized or fraudulent payments that breached National Guard rules, according to the documents that the White House itself released.

Does this disqualify Mr. Bush from being commander in chief? No. But it should disqualify the Bush campaign from sliming the military service of a rival who still carries shrapnel from Vietnam in his thigh.

E-mail: nicholas@nytimes.com