• Bush Administration cuts $1.5 billion from military family housing.
• The Bush Administration cut $1.5 billion for military family housing, despite Department of Defense statistics showing that in 83,000 barracks and 128,860 family housing units across the country are below standard. ("Nothing But Lip Service," Army Times, June 30, 2003; "House Appropriations Committee Approves $59.2 Million for Ft. Hood," U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards Press Release, June 17, 2003)
• Bush Republicans support millionaires instead of military veterans. Bush allies in Congress stopped efforts to scale back the tax cut for the nation's millionaires by just five percent - a loss of just $4,780 for the year - in order to restore this funding for military family housing. ("The Tax Debate Nobody Hears About," Washington Post, June 17, 2003)
• Bush Administration underfunded veterans' health care by $2 billion. The Bush Administration's 2004 budget underfunded veterans' health care by nearly $2 billion. ("Vets Health Low on Bush's Priority List," The Hill, September 17, 2003; "Support for Troops Questioned," Washington Post, June 17, 2003; U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs, September 2002)
• Bush Administration proposal would end health care benefits for 173,000 veterans. More than 173,000 veterans across the country would be cut off from health care because of Bush Administration proposed budget cuts and its plan requiring enrollment fees and higher out-of-pocket costs. ("Support for Troops Questioned," Washington Post, June 17, 2003)
• Bush Administration budget cuts force more than 200,000 veterans to wait for health care. Over 200,000 United States veterans have to wait more than six months for a medical visit because of health care shortages. ("VA Health Care Funding Alert," Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States Press Release, January 31, 2003)
• Bush Administration opposed plan to give National Guard and Reserve Members access to health insurance. Despite the war efforts of America's National Guard and Reserve Members, the Bush Administration announced in October 2003 its formal opposition to give the 1.2 million Guard and Reserve members the right to buy health care coverage through the Pentagon's health plan. One out of every five Guard members lacks health insurance. ("Bush Opposes Health Plan for National Guard," Gannett News Service, October 23, 2003)
• Bush Administration cuts $172 million allotted for educating the children of military personnel. The Bush Administration's 2004 budget cut $172 million of impact aid funding. Impact aid funding assists school districts by making up for lost local tax revenue from tax-exempt property, such as military bases. These education cuts will especially affect school-age children of troops serving in Iraq who reside on military bases. ("Support for Troops Questioned," Washington Post, June 17, 2003)
• Bush Administration tax cut denies military families increase in child tax credit. The families of 262,000 children of military personnel do not receive the child tax credit increase because the plan fails to cover taxpaying families with incomes between $10,500 and $26,625. According to The Washington Post, the House version of the Bush Administration plan "wouldn't help many of those serving in Iraq." One solider who will not benefit is Army Specialist Shoshana Johnson, the soldier and single mother who was wounded twice in the same convoy as Jessica Lynch. ("Ex-POW's Family Accuses Army of Double Standard on Benefit," Washington Post, October 24, 2003; "The New Senate Child Credit Legislation - What It Does and Does Not Do," Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, June 25, 2003; "Whose Child Is Left Behind," Children's Defense Fund, July 23, 2003)

George W. Bush - AWOL from the National Guard 1972-'73

Documented Service Records of John Kerry and George Bush

Decide for yourself. Below are some of Bush's military documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

• Suspended from flying August 1972...

   

• Annual Officer Effectiveness Report, 5/2/73: "Not Observed" from May 1, 1972 to April 30, 1973...

   

• In June of 1973, Air Force HQ asks for more information...

   

• ...and in November, Major Rufus Martin tells them he has none to give.

Here are the rest of the documents

obtained through FOIA by Martin Heldt.

Here's the timeline of events, laid out in table format by UggaBugga. Mother Jones also has a good timeline.

Here are the documents as dumped on the White House Press corps Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend. Think they're hiding something? Where is his flight log? Records from the Flight Inquiry Board? Any paperwork at all from Alabama? Any DD-24 forms to the local draft board certifying active status in 1972 or 1973? (Is there a dog loose somewhere with a curious taste for military records microfiche? Is that dog's name Albert Lloyd?)

HERE is a site that lays out the meticulous proof Bush was considered a deserter by the Air Force.

"ARPC then designated Bush as AWOL and a “non-locatee” (i.e. a deserter) who had failed to satisfactorily participate in TXANG, and certified him for immediate induction through his local draft board. Once the Houston draft board got wind of the situation, strings were pulled; and documents were generated which directly contradict Air Force policy, and which were inconsistent with the rest of the records released by the White House."

Nice Bush's suspension from flying, as released to Marty Heldt, Walter Robinson and others in 2000.

Bush's suspension from flying, as released to USA Today (see p. 10) in 2004.

Why did someone feel a need to black out the name of Major James R. Bath in the second release of documents?

 Get Your AWOLBush.com Stuff!

"TAFMS" and "TAFCS" - those are awards or citations? Or are they incomplete records of total days served? Why are they in box 24?

And while we're on the topic of awards and medals, consider this (sent in by a reader):

 "I also did a google search on the Texas Faithful Service Medal and found a couple of bio's which confirmed that medal was awarded back in that era for "honorable" service to officers, and apparently enlisteds. Based on the criteria "shall be awarded" there would have been nothing to keep the TANG from awarding Lt. Dubya (G. W. BUSH) that medal, if his eligibility period was not interrupted. It is similar to the active duty Good Conduct Medal. Keep your nose clean for the eligibility period, and you get the award.

I also found it interesting that Lt. Dubya was not recommended for any of the other TANG awards, when his fitness reports (evaluations) were all "glowing" and said he was one of the top officers and pilots in the TANG. His appointment was political, his acceptance for pilot training (with no prior experience or officer training), was political, and he was the "poster boy" for the TANG. All his superiors loved him, and they liked to have their pictures taken with him. Why no awards??? Did he screw up, and they just wanted to get him out of the TANG as fast as possible, with no fanfare, to keep Poppy B (G.W.'S OLD MAN) happy??

There is no way he walked away from flight status without some type of investigation (unless the TANG outfit was complicit in helping him hide something he and Poppy didn't want to get into the public domain)... But, they would have had to answer to higher authority, who would want an answer on why he did not take his flight physical and drug test (which he probably had to take). Those records would have to be in Denver or St. Louis."

Did Bush get the Texas Faithful Service Medal, or not? Why not? When, precisely, did Bush or his unit receive the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award he displays so proudly in this photo?? Is Bush wearing a ribbon to which he is not entitled?? Has anyone except for Bush's henchment seen the entire microfiche record? Why not?

Here are some other sources:

• Tina Brown, Washington Post 9/22/04: Breaking the News, Then Becoming It
  • Documents or no documents, everyone knows Bush's dad got him out of Vietnam. Everyone knows he thought he had better, funner things to do than go to a bunch of boring National Guard drills. (Only a killjoy like John Kerry would spend his carefree youth racking up high-minded demonstrations of courage and conscience, right?) Like O.J. Simpson's infamous "struggle" to squeeze his big hand into the glove, the letter was just a lousy piece of evidence that should never have been produced in court. Now because CBS, like Marcia Clark, screwed up the prosecution, Bush is going to walk.
  • Or maybe not. There are lies floating around that are a lot bigger than anything CBS or Bush is saying or hiding about what happened thirty-odd years ago in Texas and Alabama. They're about Iraq and they're about now, and Kerry is finally talking about them coherently enough to have a chance of getting some traction...
• Susan Cooper Eastman, Folio Weekly (Jacksonville, FL) 9/21/04: Fear of Flying: A Duval County Woman Says Nerves Ended GW's National Guard Service In Texas
  • Contrary to some news reports that suggest Killian admired Bush, Linke says the officer didn't have much use for the young Lieutenant. He mentioned that Bush appeared to have a drinking problem, she recalls, but he was most offended by another incapacity: his fear of flying. According to Linke, Killian said Bush was grounded in his fourth year of flying after he became incapable of flying or properly landing a plane.
  • "He was mucking up bad, Killian told us," Linke says. "He just became afraid to fly."
  • Killian has become a major figure in Bush's unfolding "Guardgate." CBS news anchor Dan Rather produced a memo signed by Killian saying he was pressured to sugarcoat Bush's service, among other things. A few days after the report, CBS backed off when other media questioned the veracity of the documents.
  • But flight logs released by the White House three weeks ago in response to a lawsuit by the Associated Press show a strange retraction of Bush's air time around that period. In February and March 1972, Bush switched from flying the F102A fighter jet, which the guard used to patrol U.S. borders, to a two-seat T-33 training jet. His superiors also returned him to flight simulator practice sessions.
  • But records suggest the extra training sessions didn't help. Logs show that in March and April 1972, Bush twice needed multiple tries to land the F102 fighter. Days later, on April 16, Bush piloted a plane for the Texas Air National Guard for the last time.
  • "He just couldn't cut it," says Linke. "I was let to believe he was kind of a coward." (Folio Weekly was able to reach two former Bush squadmates in Texas, but both declined to be interviewed.)
• News Compilation Part II, 9/19/04 (thanks Alan!)
  • If we continue on our current course, historians will spend years pondering how Bush and his surrogates were able to massively manipulate the media agenda not just once but twice in this campaign. In August the story was SBVT. Now the story is "memogate." Questions about superscripts and kerning are getting the kind of attention usually reserved for blue dress stains (apologies to Jon Stewart). As a result, this much more important question is being pushed aside: is Bush lying about his TANG service?

    Lurking behind the murk of "memogate" is this stark truth: through his entire political career, Bush has been lying about his military non-service. He said he met his commitments, but he didn't. He said he had no preferential treatment, but he did.

    There is now ample and new proof of this, as documented in recent, important reports by the Boston Globe, US News, CNN and others. An excellent, lucid summary of these reports is here: http://mediamatters.org/items/200409150002.

    An excellent summary of these issues also appears in today's NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/politics/campaign/20bama.html. A more detailed and very clear review just appeared here: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/20/bush_guard_records/index.html.

    These reports clearly show (even putting the Killian memos completely aside) that Bush used pull to get into TANG, he used pull to extricate himself when TANG was no longer useful to him, and he shirked his duty in between. What's much worse is that he's been consistently lying about all this.

    The original machinations, failures and embarrassments are old, but the campaign of cover-up is continuous, immediate and relevant. How then can we trust him to lead us in war? Yet instead of scrutinizing Bush's credibility, we're fretting about Dan Rather, as if the latter, not the former, is in a position to do irreparable harm to our nation and our world.

    Rather is under pressure, rightly, to take responsibility if he has promulgated misinformation. Surely the president must be held to this same standard, at minimum.

    Bush is praying for the murk of "memogate" to persist indefinitely, like smog over LA in a thermal inversion. That's why he recently said "there are a lot of questions about the documents and they need to be answered." And with spectacular, but increasingly routine, audacity, he repeated one of his big lies: he said "I met my requirements." (NH Union Leader, 9/18/04, http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=44164)

    Forgive me for switching metaphors: this is a classic case of missing the forest for the trees. There is now a forest of reasons to understand that Bush has consistently lied about his TANG years. Yet we now have our nose pressed up against one particular tree, and we're obsessively examining the microscopic structure of its bark. It's time to step back from this tree, from this murk. It's time to put aside the Killian memos and consider the expanding body of other evidence and analysis which conveys the same message embodied in those memos: Bush has deceived us, and is still deceiving us.

    Bush's surrogates are now fully mobilized to use "memogate" to further obscure the truth. With astonishing chutzpah, in recent days the right-wing chorus (in particular a series of hosts and guests on Fox) is flatly asserting that absent the Killian memos, Bush is off the hook. (This is thoroughly documented here: http://mediamatters.org/items/200409170001.)

    They apparently hope all the other rapidly mounting evidence about Bush's non-service in TANG (and his long trail of deceptions on the subject) will magically dematerialize in a confounding haze of typographical arcana.

    Aside from this mendacious exploitation of "memogate," another major lie is the Honorable Discharge Defense. Bush repeats like a mantra: "I was honorably discharged" (NH Union Leader, ibid), as if this constitutes proof he met his commitments. Nonsense. The best analysis I've seen proving this point is here: http://mediamatters.org/items/200409080010. Various grievous miscreants (e.g., John Allan Muhammad, Lee Harvey Oswald) have been granted an honorable discharge. Despite the misleading name, it does not constitute proof of honorable and complete service. In Bush's case, it's sufficiently obvious that he received his discharge because of family connections, and despite the fact that he failed to meet his commitments.

• News Compilation 9/15/04 (thanks Alan!)
  • I just had a good compilation of articles emailed to me:
    
    "MEMOGATE:" FORGED OR NOT, MULTIPLE WITNESSES SAY CONTENT IS ACCURATE
    
    So the question of whether the documents are forged is just a sideshow. See:
    
    http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/politics/campaign/15guard.html http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/091504dnpolnatguard.1185eb4ae.html
    
    Those two stories mention one witness. The following story introduces a second witness: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-09-14-memos-forgeries_x.htm
    
    IT'S CLEAR GWB DIDN'T COMPLETE HIS GUARD SERVICE, EVEN IF THE KILLIAN MEMOS ARE DISCOUNTED
    
    It's not just that he didn't meet his service commitments. It's that he has a history of misleading us about this.
    
    There are important, recent articles that highlight the critical work of Lukasiak and/or Lechliter. Thanks in great part to them, the case against GWB stands even in the absence of the Killian memos. The following articles make that clear.
    
    Good overall summary of the TANG issue: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/09/bush_guard_duty/
    
    This Boston Globe story was one of the first major pieces to cite Lechliter: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/09/08/bush_fell_short_on_duty_at_guard/
    
    This NYT op/ed refers to Lechliter. Lechliter's report, in turn, has a footnote crediting Lukasiak: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/08/opinion/08kristof.html
    
    This excellent and important piece starts with Lechliter's work and does real journalism (interviewing various military experts to advance it forward): http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/roane040908.htm
    
    A later (but much shorter) version of that article: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040920/usnews/20guard.htm
    
    This piece focuses on the Killian memos, but also mentions Lechliter: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-09-09-bush-guard-memos_x.htm
    
    "HONORABLE DISCHARGE" DOESN'T PROVE ANYTHING
    
    The White House repeats like a mantra that (paraphrase) "he got an honorable discharge, so that proves he did his duty and there was no misconduct." Bullshit. The best analysis I've seen proving this point is here: http://mediamatters.org/items/200409080010
    
    ACCORDING TO HARVARD PROF, BUSH HIMSELF ADMITTED THAT DADDY GOT HIM BOTH IN AND OUT OF TANG
    
    This is a major addition to the subject matter raised in the recent Ben Barnes interview. This important story is just now breaking into major media. Again, the major point is that GWB has been lying about this.
    
    Most recent major mention is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/opinion/15kris.html?hp
    
    A significant aspect of that Kristof column is that it quotes Tsurumi as saying that GWB admitted not only that daddy got him into TANG, but also that daddy got him out.
    
    "'Any allegation that my dad asked for special favors is simply not true,' he said in 1999." See: http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/13/bush.professor/
    
    Some credit for breaking this story belongs here (9/10): http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/story/230745p-198181c.html
    
    I think the story first appeared in the Harvard Crimson (7/16/04, http://thecrimson.com/today/article503181.html).
    
    HOUSTON LETTER-WRITER CONFIRMS 2-3 YEAR WAITING LIST FOR BUSH'S UNIT
    
    See letter "Guard rejected him at time" (9/14/04, http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/2795998).
• Russ Baker, The Nation 9/14/04: Why Bush Left Texas
  • Growing evidence suggests that George W. Bush abruptly left his Texas Air National Guard unit in 1972 for substantive reasons pertaining to his inability to continue piloting a fighter jet.

    A months-long investigation, which includes examination of hundreds of government-released documents, interviews with former Guard members and officials, military experts and Bush associates, points toward the conclusion that Bush's personal behavior was causing alarm among his superior officers and would ultimately lead to his fleeing the state to avoid a physical exam he might have had difficulty passing. His failure to complete a physical exam became the official reason for his subsequent suspension from flying status.

    This central issue, whether Bush did or did not complete his duty--and if not, why--has in recent days been obscured by a raging sideshow: a debate over the accuracy of documents aired on CBS's 60 Minutes. Last week CBS News reported on newly unearthed memos purportedly prepared by Bush's now-deceased commanding officer. In those documents, the officer, Lieut. Col. Jerry Killian, appeared to be establishing for the record events occurring at the time Bush abruptly left his Texas Air National Guard unit in May 1972. Among these: that Bush had failed to meet unspecified Guard standards and refused a direct order to take a physical exam, and that pressure was being applied on Killian and his superiors to whitewash whatever troubling circumstances Bush was in.

    Questions have been raised about the authenticity of those memos, but the criticism of them appears at this time speculative and inconclusive, while their substance is consistent with a growing body of documentation and analysis.

• Kit R. Roane, US News & World Report 9/8/04: Bush's military service in question – again
  • "A new examination of payroll records and other documents released by the White House earlier this year appear to confirm critics' assertions that President George W. Bush failed to fulfill his duty to the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. "
• Retired Army Colonel Gerald Lechliter, New York Times: President George W. Bush’s Military Service: A Critical Analysis
  • "The record clearly and convincingly proves he did not fulfill the obligations he incurred when he enlisted in the Air National Guard."
• Dan Froomkin, Washington Post, 9/7/04: Bush's Youth Under Scrutiny
  • "After weeks in which the political discourse was nearly dominated by the scrutinizing of Sen. John F. Kerry's conduct in the Vietnam War era, President Bush now may find himself under the microscope and on the defensive for actions in his past.
    
    Kerry supporters are actively questioning Bush's spotty record as a stateside National Guardsmen during the Vietnam War. A former senior politician in Texas is telling people he pulled strings to get Bush into the guard.
    
    And an Associated Press investigation has concluded that key documents that should have been written to explain gaps in Bush's guard service are missing.
    
    Jill Zuckman writes in the Chicago Tribune: "Across Ohio and into West Virginia over the Labor Day weekend, Kerry supporters took to the campaign stage with mocking, caustic, scornful rhetoric directed at President Bush's military service and Vice President Dick Cheney's lack of service." "
• Wolf Blitzer, CNN.com, 8/28/04
  • Blitzer:
    
    Still unresolved even today are the attendance gaps in his Guard service.
    
    Bush flew for 22 months and never flew again after being suspended from flight status in 1972 for not taking a required annual physical exam.
    
    Adding to the controversy, the question over whether he did part of his guard service in Alabama.
    
    The Boston Globe, the Washington Post and others who examined Bush's military records say they do not support Bush's claims he did in fact do Guard duty in Alabama.
    
    To substantiate Bush's version, the White House in February released what it said were all of Bush's military records.
    
    "If you look at these records," said White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, "these records document that the president fulfilled his duties."
• Still Unreported: The Pay-off in Bush Air Guard Fix
  Greg Palast, Gregpalast.com 8/28/04
  • In 1968, former Congressman George Herbert Walker Bush of Texas, fresh from voting to send other men’s sons to Vietnam, enlisted his own son in a very special affirmative action program, the ‘champagne’ unit of the Texas Air National Guard. There, Top Gun fighter pilot George Dubya was assigned the dangerous job of protecting Houston from Vietcong air attack.
    
    This week, former Lt. Governor Ben Barnes of Texas 'fessed up to pulling the strings to keep Little George out of the jungle. "I got a young man named George W. Bush into the Texas Air Guard - and I'm ashamed."
    
    THE PAY-OFF
    
    That’s far from the end of the story. In 1994, George W. Bush was elected governor of Texas by a whisker. By that time, Barnes had left office to become a big time corporate lobbyist. To an influence peddler like Barnes, having damning information on a sitting governor is worth its weight in gold – or, more precisely, there’s a value in keeping the info secret.
    
    Barnes appears to have made lucrative use of his knowledge of our President’s slithering out of the draft as a lever to protect a multi-billion dollar contract for a client. That's the information in a confidential letter buried deep in the files of the US Justice Department that fell into my hands at BBC television...
• Ben Barnes, on video, Salon.com - "I'm very ashamed." (story by Jeff Horwitz 8/27/04)
  • "Let's talk a minute about John Kerry and George Bush, and I know them both," said Barnes in the video, which was filmed at a gathering of about 200 Kerry supporters in Austin on May 27. "I got a young man named George W. Bush into the Texas National Guard when I was lieutenant governor, and I'm not necessarily proud of that. But I did it. I got a lot of other people in the National Guard because I thought that was what people should do when you're in office, and you help a lot of rich people."
    
    "And I walked to the Vietnam Memorial the other day," Barnes continued, "and I looked at the names of the people that died in Vietnam, and I became more ashamed of myself than I have ever been, because it was the worst thing I ever did, was help a lot of wealthy supporters and a lot of people who had family names of importance get into the National Guard. And I'm very sorry about that, and I'm very ashamed, and I apologize to you as voters of Texas."
• Where is the Shame?
  Bob Herbert, New York Times 8/27/04
  • "Mr. Bush himself, the nation's commander in chief and the biggest hawk of all. He revels in the accouterments of combat. The story was somewhat different when he was 22 years old and eligible for combat himself. He managed to get into the cushy confines of the Texas Air National Guard at the height of the Vietnam War in 1968 - a year in which more than a half-million American troops were in the war zone and more than 14,000 were killed.
    
    The story gets murky after that. We know the future president breezed off at some point to work on a political campaign in Alabama, skipped a required flight physical in 1972 and was suspended from flying. He supported the war in Vietnam but was never in any danger of being sent there.
• W. Overstated His Military Record
  David Corn, The Nation 8/24/04
  • Putting aside the controversy over Bush's Air National Guard service (or dereliction of duty), there was another instance when Bush clearly did not speak truthfully about his military record. In 1978, Bush, while running for Congress in West Texas, produced campaign literature that claimed he had served in the US Air Force. According to a 1999 Associated Press report, Bush's congressional campaign ran a pullout ad in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal that declared he had served "in the US Air Force and the Texas Air National Guard where he piloted the F-102 aircraft."
    
    Bush lost that congressional race, but twenty-one years later, the AP questioned him about the ad. The news outlet had a good reason to do so. Bush had never served in the Air Force. He had only been in the Air National Guard. But when AP asked Bush if he had been justified in claiming service in the Air Force, Bush, then the governor of Texas and a presidential candidate, said, "I think so, yes. I was in the Air Force for over 600 days." Karen Hughes, his spokeswoman, maintained that when Bush attended flight school for the Air National Guard from 1968 to 1969 he was considered to be on active duty for the Air Force and that several times afterward he had been placed on alert, which also qualified as active duty for the Air Force. All told, she said, Bush had logged 607 days of training and alerts. "As an officer [in the Air National Guard]," she told the AP, "he was serving on active duty in the Air Force."
    
    But this explanation was wrong. Says who? The Air Force....
• Harkin calls Cheney a 'coward' and criticizes 'backdoor draft'
  Associated Press, The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier 8/14/04
  • "When I hear this coming from Dick Cheney, who was a coward, who would not serve during the Vietnam War, it makes my blood boil," Harkin said. "Those of us who served and those of us who went in the military don't like it when someone like a Dick Cheney comes out and he wants to be tough. Yeah, he'll be tough. He'll be tough with somebody else's blood, somebody else's kids. But not when it was his turn to go."
• Patriotism is, as a patriot does
  Curt Andersen, Green Bay News-Chronicle
  • ... One particular 30-ish veteran (I took his word for his veteran status) decided to shout in my face. When I said I was a veteran, too, the man first called me a liar, then a traitor (for not supporting the war in Iraq.) When I told him where I had been and what I had done while in the Navy, it wasn’t good enough for him. He felt his service was more important than mine, you see.
    
    That protestor must really hate Bush’s record&or lack thereof. I remember being an hour late for duty one time, and getting three hours of extra duty for my crime. A shipmate missed the movement of our ship from Norfolk to Portsmouth, a distance of about 3 miles, when he went home to see his father, who was dying of cancer. His ride back to the ship from Upstate New York didn’t show up, and in spite of Al’s heroic attempts to get back to the ship on time, flying from airport to airport to airport to do so, he missed the departure by about 7 minutes&which is known as “Missing Ship’s Movement.” This rule was intended to keep the weak from skipping out on serving during a time of national crisis. Al got Executive Officer’s Mast for that “crime.” Bush missed months of Air National Guard meetings and the right-wingers want to give him a pass. I think not. Bush was a malingerer at best, a deserter, or a chicken hawk at the very worst. Bush supported the Vietnam War, but scrupulously avoided serving there. He was a deceptive coward when it came to his own service!
• Bush's Military Past
  Ian Williams, The Nation - August 5, 2004
  • The paper record does show that he was ordered to report for a flight medical exam in July 1972, but that Bush "failed to accomplish" it, and that in September he was ordered to report for an inquiry into why he had not passed. His memories of these momentous events which grounded him and made him unfit for flight duties seem very hazy. ...
    
    ... The core issue is that George W. Bush, who campaigned eagerly for Republican pro-war candidates, joined the National Guard, ticking the box to refuse overseas service, at the height of the Tet Offensive, in what Senator Robert Byrd has called the "War of His Generation."
    
    He did so with the aid of nepotistic influence, jumping a long line, despite a 25 percent score on his pilot aptitude test--and despite a series of driving convictions that should have required a special waiver. He was commissioned an officer despite having no pilot experience, no time in the ROTC, and without attending Officer Training School.
    
    And then he went missing for a year, and as a reward was allowed to terminate his service early so he could go to Harvard Business School.
• Edwards promises to win back White House, seeks Arkansas votes
  Wesley Brown, Arkansas News Bureau Aug 5, 2004
  • "... Bob Ruffin of North Little Rock, a war veteran of Korea and Vietnam, said he felt that Kerry would be a better commander in chief than Bush.
    
    "I believe he will be one of the best presidents we ever had," said Ruffin, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel. "Mr. Bush only completed four of his six years of National Guard duty. Why he was grounded is still a mystery that has not been explained." ...
• Addy, Anthony and Jude
  Joseph Sabino Mistick, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, PA , August 1, 2004
  • And here's the clincher. In four years, President Bush has been unable to find a single soul who saw him when he was supposed to be serving in the National Guard in Alabama. I never set any attendance records at Pitt in the late '60s, but there must be one or two old hippies who remember me hanging out in Professor Myron Taube's office in the Cathedral of Learning.
• Questions rightly linger about Bush's service
  The Republican [MA] - Sunday, July 18, 2004
  • There is every reason to believe that Bush was able to obtain a position in the Texas Air National Guard because of his family connections. In 1968, two weeks before he was to graduate from Yale, Bush was vaulted to the top of a long waiting list at a Texas Air National Guard unit in Houston. His father was a congressman at that time.
    
    During Bush's 2000 campaign for the presidency, questions were raised about whether he fulfilled his duties as a Guard member for a 12-month period from May 1972 to May 1973. Those questions remain today.
    
    Bush had requested - and been granted - a transfer to an Alabama Guard unit. But there is no official record that he ever performed any Guard duties during that time.
• The case of the missing Bush documents
  James C. Moore, Salon.com News, 7/15/2004
  • Records covering the president's crucial missing months in the Texas Air National Guard were "accidentally" destroyed. But he could still clear his name if he chose to.
• National Guard Correction
  Dan Froomkin, Washington Post 7/13/04 (scroll down)
  • In Friday's column, I linked to a Ralph Blumenthal story in the New York Times about how the Pentagon was saying that some of Bush's payroll records had been "inadvertently destroyed."
    
    I added my own comment: That I found this surprising, given that Associated Press Assistant General Counsel Dave Tomlin had told me two weeks earlier that the AP, which has filed a lawsuit demanding Bush's Vietnam-era records, has been informed that the microfilm in question did indeed exist.
    
    Several alert readers e-mailed me to suggest that I had conflated two sets of microfilm. And in fact, I did just that. (Thank you, readers.)
    
    I reached Tomlin yesterday and he set me straight, so now I can set the record straight myself.
    
    The microfilm that the Pentagon reported destroyed was housed at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service in Denver and consisted only of a few months of payroll records -- albeit some of them from during the hotly contested third quarter of 1972.
    
    The Associated Press lawsuit that Tomlin filed is for the microfilm of Bush's entire personnel file from the Texas Air National Guard. Those records are in Austin.
    
    The Denver microfilm was the subject of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request -- and the Austin lawsuit was filed in response to the denial of a FOIA request.
    
    But they were different FOIA requests.
• The Guard Record Bush Doesn't Want You To See
  Bolo Boffin 7/9/04
  • "Now they tell us this payroll record was destroyed in a microfilm restoration project. The mainstream media is treating this destruction as the end of the story, as if we will never know the real story behind Bush's service during this period. However, the payroll information for this missing quarter has been preserved in other payroll records, and a complete picture of Bush's fifth year of service can easily be reconstructed, if you take a little time to put the records together."
• A History of Refusing to Release Documents
  Center for American Progress - July 9, 2004
  • "BUSH REFUSES TO CALL ON TEXAS TO RELEASE MILITARY RECORDS: Though the Bush administration now says the Pentagon "inadvertently" destroyed key documents about the President's military service at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, the President has refused to call on the state of Texas to release copies of those military files that are legally-required to exist there. According to AP, "Under Texas law, a copy of military personnel files of those serving in the Texas Air National Guard must be retained on microfilm at the Texas archives." The Texas Air National Guard has told AP that the files in the Texas state archive are under control of the federal government. But according to the NY Times, the chief of the Pentagon's Freedom of Information Office refused to comment about obtaining the documents. [Sources: NY Times 7/9/04; AP, 6/22/04]"

  Cure for war fever? Draft those over 50
  Joel McNally, The Journal Times, Racine WI 7/8/04

  • "...We can even dream about Michels starting a trend in politics. Make it a requirement that every politician who supports sending young Americans into combat should agree to serve a year himself.
    
    Come to think of it, Michels isn't the only Republican politician promoting this war who still owes the military some time. We shouldn't forget about all that National Guard service George W. Bush didn't bother to show up for in Alabama.
    
    Before we start pulling retired soldiers out of their beds and putting them on planes to Iraq, maybe Bush could make up those missing months remaining on his military obligation. He's already got that flight suit he rented from a costume shop for the "Mission Accomplished" ceremony more than a year ago.
    
    While Bush is over there, he might even have time to look around for those weapons of mass destruction. ...
• The Big Decision
  By William Saletan, Slate.com, Tuesday, July 6, 2004

  • "Think about this for a minute: He left college, and he volunteered three different ways. First he volunteered for military service. Then he volunteered to serve in Vietnam. And then he volunteered for some of the most dangerous, hazardous duty you could possibly have in Vietnam. As a result, he was wounded multiple times. He won a whole series of medals while he was there. And now—this is an amazing thing—a vice president of the United States who avoided service four, five, six times—I've lost count—[and] a president of the United States who can't account for a year of his national guard service are attacking John Kerry for the medals he won in Vietnam? You have got to be kidding me."

  That's John Edwards talking about John Kerry at a Florida Democratic Party fund-raiser three weeks ago. This is why Kerry had to pick Edwards: Kerry sounds so much more attractive when Edwards is doing the talking.

• We are patriots all?
  Benton[AR] Courier, Opinions, July 4, 2004
  • Two things in that area concern me...The second is the tendency of some to wrap themselves in the flag and act as if anyone who opposes them is unpatriotic. Considering the truths on which this country is founded, I consider that appalling.
    
    That was the tactic of some Republicans in the early days of this war and I resent it. I also burn when I hear a Bush supporter question John Kerry's patriotism. The man went to war and served heroically. George W. Bush didn't finish his National Guard commitment, which his father (who was a war hero, ironically) had obtained for him in the first place. End of discussion. Whatever Kerry said afterward or did with his medals was his right, which he had served to protect.
• Release the microfilm
  The Charleston [WV] Gazette, Editorial, July 01, 2004
  • "THE WHITE House says the government has released all available records of President Bush’s military service. Yet gaps remain in the public’s grasp of what President Bush did in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, particularly while working on a Republican U.S. Senate campaign in Alabama.
    
    Some questions might be answered by a microfilmed personnel file at the Texas State Library and Archives Commission in Austin. Normally, such a file would be confidential, but the president gave verbal permission during a TV appearance earlier this year for the military to share those records with the public. Yet, when the Associated Press asked for a written waiver so the records could be released, the White House did not answer. Nor has the Air Force or Pentagon responded to the AP’s request to see the file.
    
    Now the AP has asked a federal court to require the Pentagon and Air Force to provide access to the records.
• AWOL: The final analysis
  Orcinus David Neiwert, Tuesday, June 29, 2004
  • My old Table Talk cohort Paul Lukasiak -- whose research skills are top-notch, and whose judgment I've learned to implicitly trust -- has examined all the officially released documents relating to George W. Bush's service records and has just released the following report:
    
    Deserter: The Story of George W. Bush After He Quit the Air National Guard
    
    Paul's piece most carefully examines the records that appear in Bush's records after he was transferred to the Air Personnel Reserve Center once he had failed to maintain his flight status:
• AP Lawyer: It's 'Curious' We've Had to Sue for Bush Records
  Editor and Publisher, June 24, 2004
  • The Associated Press has sued the Pentagon and Air Force, seeking access to all records of President George W. Bush's military service, but the news agency wonders why it has come to this.

    "It seems a little curious because the president made a pretty forceful presentation that he had nothing to hide," said AP General Counsel Dave Tomlin, when asked for his reaction to what the AP considers government stonewalling. "But we are not surprised."

    Tomlin told E&P the lawsuit is needed to get access to a portion of Bush's record that may offer more information than the paper files previously released. "The paper file may not be everything," he said. "It has been there a long while, it could conceivably be tampered with."

    Because the microfilm record has been in storage and "it can't be altered, that access to the microfilm would settle the matter," Tomlin added.

    When asked why a lawsuit was needed, he said, "the administrative efforts we've made just aren't getting traction."

• What Were These People Thinking?!?!
  Daniel Ruth, Tampa Tribune, May 2, 2004
  • "...Some dimwit actually thought it would be a really swell idea to begin attacking the military service of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry, who only received the Bronze Star, the Silver Star for valor and three Purple Hearts during two - count 'em, two - voluntary tours of duty in Vietnam.

    Is this truly a shrewd political strategy when George W. Bush has been bobbing and weaving more than Muhammad Ali when it comes to answering questions about his own zephyrlike service in the Texas/Alabama Air National Guard while Kerry was literally picking shrapnel out of his keister?

    The White House had successfully managed to divert attention away from the fact that Bush regarded his National Guard years with all the dedication to duty of Maynard G. Krebs perusing the help wanted ads, only to begin going after Kerry, who actually has film footage of himself walking around the jungle in fatigues armed with his assault rifle.

    Sure, perhaps there is some minute, marginal political benefit to take Kerry to task for his activities protesting the war in Vietnam after he returned from his service.

    But when your guy spent more time during the Vietnam era sitting on a bar stool than in the cockpit of a National Guard plane he pulled strings to get into in the first place, where is the political upside in going negative against a bona fide war hero?"

• Who is James Bath?
  North Adams (MA) Transcript, 5/3/04
  • Who in the world is James Bath and why censor his name?

    Bath is the American representative of two Saudi Arabian businessmen--one of them Osama bin Laden's older brother--and his position has brought him millions in deals involving banks and airports.

    In the mid-seventies Bath introduced Salem bin Laden and his partner Khalib bin Mahfouz to George H.W. Bush and a litany of business associations between the Bushes and the Saudis followed, a relationship that still raises eyebrows to this day.

• Bush's smear targets Kerry
  Tom Teepen, Times Union, Albany NY, Apr 27, 2004
  • "Republicans made a shivaree's worth of noise demanding that John Kerry release his military records, apparently sure that since no Democrat could possibly have a decent war record, there must be something there to expose Kerry's Vietnam story as rubbish.

    Oops. Released, the records back up the tale of a young Yale graduate who volunteered for the Navy and served with distinction. His three Purple Hearts and Bronze and Silver stars are all legit and the record is replete with reports from superiors praising Kerry's leadership, effectiveness and bravery.

    This is an awkward moment for the Bush re-election campaign, which the polls otherwise have going well for him.

    For all his flight-suit swagger, Bush, to avoid Vietnam, used his family's political influence to cut line and get into the Air National Guard when others were being denied and then, in the later years of his service, either did or didn't go AWOL -- the record is unclear -- but pretty plainly dogged it.

    Stuck with such an unflattering comparison, what could the Bush campaign do to redeem its man? Smear, of course. It's a Bush habit."

• Key Unanswered Questions on Bush's Record In National Guard
  Press Release from the Kerry Campaign, 4/27/04
  • "If George Bush wants to ask me questions about that through his surrogates, he owes America an explanation about whether or not he showed up for duty in the National Guard. Prove it. That's what we ought to have. I'm not going to stand around and let them play games."
• I watched Kerry throw his war decorations
  Thomas Oliphant, Boston Globe 4/27/02
  • "I have always found the political junk served up by Kerry's detractors to be undignified as well as largely inaccurate."
• Interview With James Moore, author of "Bush's War for Reelection"
  Buzzflash.com, 4/26/02
  • But the other thing you touched upon is the attention span of the media, and the let's-move-on-to-the-next-news-cycle-of-the-day kind of issue. I think the National Guard thing is entirely sort of exemplary of what you suggested. The National Guard issue is not resolved. Those records off of the microfiche in St. Louis were shipped to General Danny James in Washington. They were all printed out and vetted by General James' office. Then they were sent to the White House, and they were vetted by the White House. And then they did the Friday evening document dump on the reporters.
    
    The reporters have accepted that as though it were the end of the issue. Even though they haven't seen all the documents, they haven't brought it up again. When anyone such as Dave Moniz at USA Today, who is consistently pursuing this story -- when he brings it up any more, he's told, "We've dealt with that issue, and we're not answering questions about it." Reporters, in this particular instance, ought to be saying, "Mr. President, we still haven't seen everything. Why don't you authorize a complete release of your microfiche, just like John McCain did, and we can put this issue to rest?"
    
    The reason the President won't do that is because there's damning information within the microfiche printed documents. Yet reporters have decided that that news cycle is over. That story has gone away and they've moved on. ...
• Bush's Guard Service
  Tom Formisano, Lexington Herald-Leader, 4/11/02
  • The records of the 111th squadron show that Bush flew with it from June 1970 to April 1972 and was regarded as a good pilot. In the latter months, he stopped flying, two years before his military commitment ended. He stayed in the Guard for only 18 more months, and did not fly at all.
    
    In May 1972, after moving to Alabama to work in a Republican Senate campaign, Bush applied for a transfer to do equivalent training at an Alabama base. Although Bush's immediate superiors approved, senior Guard officers in Texas did not, noting that the unit to which Bush was assigned had no regular drills, not even airplanes.
    
    There is no record of his having flown in that state, or that he showed up for required periodic drills. In August 1972, Bush was removed from flight status for not taking his annual flight physical. In September, he requested permission to do duty for the next 10 to 12 weeks with the 187th Tactical Recon in Montgomery.
    
    In 2000, the unit's commander and administrative officer testified that to their knowledge, Bush had never reported there.
    
    With the 1972 political campaign over, Bush returned to Houston and held a civilian job. On May 2, 1973, two supervising pilots reported they could not rate Bush's performance for the past year because, they believed, he had been "performing equivalent training in a non-flying status" in Alabama.
• Bush's War for Reelection
  James Moore, Chap. 10, p. 203-204
  • "The day that George W. Bush got word he had been suspended as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard , August 15, 1972, Richard Cunnare of Alabama was in a helicopter falling from the sky. The commander of the AH-1G Cobra attack aircraft, Chuck Dean, was apparently dead from a bullet to the head, and Cunnare saw the jungle floor in Vietnam rising toward the helicopter...
    
    ...while Thomas Boyd and Howard Fraley dragged a screaming Richard Cunnare through the jungle that morning of August 15, 1972, each of them desperately hoping to live, the young man who was to become president of the United States of America was continuing to ignore direct orders to report for duty to the National Guard."
• Case Closed
  Lowdown by Lloyd Grove, New York Daily News, 3/19/04
  • CASE CLOSED: Four weeks ago, "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau announced in his cartoon strip the "Bush Guard Service" contest: "We're offering $10,000 cash to any witness who can definitively corroborate Mr. Bush's claim" that three decades before he became President, he served in the Alabama National Guard. "So if you served with Mr. Bush - even if only in the officers' club - we want to hear from you right now! Why? So we can put this trash story to rest and get back to the real issues." Well, it turns out that no credible witness has come forward to claim the prize, so this week Trudeau mailed a personal check for $10,000 to the USO. "We're extremely grateful for his generosity," USO Vice President John Hansen told me yesterday. But has Trudeau's check cleared? "Oh, I think he's good for it."
• Bush's partial history - Stringent military screening program may explain gaps on president's record
  Bill Morlin and Karen Dorn Steele, Spokane Spokesman-Review 3/14/04
  • "Military rules used in 1974 to ground two Washington Air National Guard airmen with access to nuclear weapons also applied to a Texas Air National Guard unit where Lt. George W. Bush was a fighter pilot."

    Some military researchers and a former Texas Guard lieutenant colonel believe the stringent regulations -- known as the Human Reliability Program -- may have been invoked to stop Bush from flying Texas Air National Guard jets in 1972....

    Isham said there is a ‘‘good likelihood” HRP regulations were either applied or about to be applied against Bush and that is why he stopped flying on April 16, 1972.

    ...

    At the National Guard Bureau, now headed by a Bush appointee from Texas, officials last week said they were under orders not to answer questions.

    The bureau's chief historian said he couldn't discuss questions about Bush's military service on orders from the Pentagon.

    ‘‘If it has to do with George W. Bush, the Texas Air National Guard or the Vietnam War, I can't talk with you,” said Charles Gross, chief historian for the National Guard Bureau in Washington, D.C.

    Rose Bird, Freedom of Information Act officer for the bureau, said her office stopped taking records requests on Bush's military service in mid-February and is directing all inquiries to the Pentagon. She would not provide a reason.

    Air Force and Texas Air National Guard officials did not respond to written questions about the issue.

    James Hogan, a records coordinator at the Pentagon, said senior Defense Department officials had directed the National Guard Bureau not to respond to questions about Bush's military records.

     

• The Boston Globe Original Story (5/23/00)
• Martin Heldt's main site, and an alternate site. Martin is a farmer in Iowa who used the Freedom of Information Act to request the very same documents used by the Boston Globe to write their first story.
• The Smoking Jet - Bush's Military Record Reveals Grounding and Absence for Two Full Years

• Another good site with all its facts straight, including testimony from several officers that Bush never showed up for Guard Duty in Alabama.
• Has CNN censored discussion of this topic? (They have a history of altering transcripts, you know...)
• The June 26 Washington Post reported that the Bush campaign could find no records showing GW served in Alabama, but they promised to find someone who served with him to corroborate his story. Have they found anyone yet?
  (If so, they could win a $1,000.00 reward from a group of Alabama veterans! And collect another $1,000.00 from Democrats.com!)
• "As the 2000 Presidential campaign moved along, angry veterans in Alabama claimed that George W Bush never performed any military service in that state, as stated on his campaign website. They offered a reward of $1000 (which rose to $3,500) to anyone who could prove that he had. No one came forth with any proof."
  - HereInReality.com
• Online Journal, 9/19/01 - Who's that guy James Bath (suspended on the same document as G.W. Bush) and what's his relationship to Osama Bin Laden?    (More on Bath and Bush)  (More on Bath and Saleem Bin Laden)
• George Magazine seems to think it's no big deal...here's why they're wrong. (10/13/00) Here's another great article discussing how certain documents made their way into Bush's files after the fact...
• Jake Tapper has an interesting question: Why did Al Gore mention Vietnam four times in the final debate? (10/19/00)
• Medal of Honor winner Sen. Bob Kerrey: "I can understand if he forgot a weekend. But 18 months?"

Now that GW Bush is President, isn't it time he released his military records? How will the biographers cover up this missing year?

Let's spread the word ourselves!

• Tell some friends about this site!
  
  
• Bumper StickersClick here for instructions.
  
  
• PDF Flyers created by friends of Martin Heldt. All are public-domain for you to copy and pass to friends, or distribute at National Guard armories near you. (Ask some of those currently serving what would happen if they didn't show up for a year or two.)
  • The first flyer (PDF, 44K), geared toward a veterans audience. - thanks, Coffee!
  • The second flyer, "Our Next Commander in Chief?" (PDF 32K), with quotes from commanding officers about his absences. Thanks, MECowan!
• OR, use the facts here to write a letter to the editor of your local paper... here's a list of newspapers for reference!
• Latrine Poetry by Mark Hubert, now including SECRETs SPOKEn, SECRETS BROKEN, Covered in Shame, the The Ballad of the Yellow Beret, "Amazin' Big Crack Texas Fubar Squadron" and Chickenhawks: The Greatest Denigration.