‘Texans for Truth' ad challenges Bush on Guard service

[papau]

In the new ad, retired lieutenant colonel Robert Mintz says he “heard George W. Bush get up there and say, ‘I served in the 187th Air National Guard in Montgomery, Alabama.'“I said, ‘Really? That was my unit. And I don't remember seeing you there,' ” Mintz says. “So I called my friends and said, ‘Did you know that George Bush served in our unit?' And everyone said, ‘No, I never saw him there.' It would be impossible to be unseen in a unit of that size.”

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20040908/a_texas08.art.htm

‘Texans for Truth' ad challenges Bush on Guard service
By Mark Memmott
USA TODAY

A group called Texans for Truth will release a TV ad today in which a former lieutenant colonel in the Alabama Air National Guard says neither he nor his friends saw George W. Bush when the future president was supposed to be with their unit in 1972.

The ad could renew questions about Bush's Vietnam-era service in the National Guard, just as ads by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth renewed debate over Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's service in Vietnam and his anti-war efforts.

Since the 2000 campaign, Bush has been dogged by questions about whether he reported for duty throughout his Guard service. He served as a pilot with the Texas Air National Guard and sought a transfer to Alabama in 1972 so he could work on a political campaign there. But some records that could document his service in Alabama are missing. <snip>

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/bush/articles/2004/09/08/bush_fell_short_on_duty_at_guard/

Bush fell short on duty at Guard
Records show pledges unmet
By The Globe Spotlight Team | September 8, 2004

This article was reported by the Globe Spotlight Team -- reporters Stephen Kurkjian, Francie Latour, Sacha Pfeiffer, and Michael Rezendes, and editor Walter V. Robinson. It was written by Robinson.
In February, when the White House made public hundreds of pages of President Bush's military records, White House officials repeatedly insisted that the records prove that Bush fulfilled his military commitment in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

But Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation, a Globe reexamination of the records shows: 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. The 1973 document has been overlooked in news media accounts. The 1968 document has received scant notice.

On July 30, 1973, shortly before he moved from Houston to Cambridge, Bush signed a document that declared, ''It is my responsibility to locate and be assigned to another Reserve forces unit or mobilization augmentation position. If I fail to do so, I am subject to involuntary order to active duty for up to 24 months. . . " Under Guard regulations, Bush had 60 days to locate a new unit.

But Bush never signed up with a Boston-area unit. In 1999, Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett told the Washington Post that Bush finished his six-year commitment at a Boston area Air Force Reserve unit after he left Houston. Not so, Bartlett now concedes. ''I must have misspoke," Bartlett, who is now the White House communications director, said in a recent interview.

And early in his Guard service, on May 27, 1968, Bush signed a ''statement of understanding" pledging to achieve ''satisfactory participation" that included attendance at 24 days of annual weekend duty -- usually involving two weekend days each month -- and 15 days of annual active duty. ''I understand that I may be ordered to active duty for a period not to exceed 24 months for unsatisfactory participation," the statement reads.

Yet Bush, a fighter-interceptor pilot, performed no service for one six-month period in 1972 and for another period of almost three months in 1973, the records show.

The reexamination of Bush's records by the Globe, along with interviews with military specialists who have reviewed regulations from that era, 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.<snip>