© 2004 CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONSBob Mintz says he was pleased to hear another young flier was joining his Air National Guard unit in Alabama in 1972. The new pilot, a lieutenant from Texas, was supposed to have influential connections and might be a good guy to party with. But Mintz said he never saw the lieutenant and did not realize until four years ago that he was George W. Bush, the future president of the United States. .. Mintz is now a retired lieutenant colonel and part of more than a dozen former members of the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group who say they never saw Bush. Bush's spokesmen have said the president fulfilled all his Vietnam-era military obligations and served honorably. The 63-year-old Mintz lives in Germantown, a suburb east of Memphis.