(no subject)
FINALLY saw advent children over at Marcus' place with Jacque with his friends (his girlfriend was sleeping so testosterone outnumbered us by 1) Twas a good time had by all. *snicker* Hanging out with geeks = good times (usually)
A Concise History of George W. Bush
I don’t know if anyone has read the 2004 book, Unfit Commander by Glenn W. Smith, but it examines the military history of George W. Bush. As we know, there was a big hullabaloo concerning Bush’s military service in the late 60s and early 70s during the 2004 reelection year. The way it was resolved was as completely unsatisfactory as it was unsettling.
The whole thing started when Bush himself in his speeches made reference to serving as an officer and pilot in the 187th ANG unit stationed in Montgomery, Alabama. A former lieutenant colonel in that unit, Robert Mintz, was shocked. “I 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.’ 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.”
Another officer in that unit along with Mintz, former Second Lieutenant Joseph Chastain, supply squadron supervisor, backed Mintz’s recollection about Bush’s service in the 187th: “I feel quite certain,” said Chastain, “I would have remembered if he had worked with me.”
The very man who would have been Bush’s commander in Alabama, Lieutenant Colonel William Turnipseed stated that he had no recollection of Bush. When asked by Newsweek about Bush’s service in Alabama, Turnipseed’s personnel chief from that time, Captain Kenneth Lott, replied, “I never saw the man, I never met the man.”
Nor do any enlisted men in the unit remember seeing Bush in Montgomery. Willard Hill was a sergeant and personnel section supervisor for the 187th. “I’ve really thought about it,” Hill said, “and I have to say I have no knowledge of him.”
Rodger S. Garrett, the command post sergeant of the 187th flight operations center, had this to say about working alongside the future president: “I don’t have any recollection at all…zero, none.”
Investigative reporters were off and running. Where did George Bush serve if not in the 187th in Montgomery? If he did not serve there, why was he telling the country he did? They dug into Bush’s background and quizzed the White House repeatedly about Bush’s records.
After months of stonewalling by the White House to provide Bush’s military records with excuses approaching the surreal (e.g. the microfilm on which the records were transferred were allegedly so brittle they crumbled to dust as if they were unearthed alongside the Dead Sea Scrolls instead of from the 1970s and 80s) and an unbelievably tactless and unconscionable attack on John Kerry’s undeniable military service in Vietnam in the so-called “Swiftboat” campaign (a similar attack was launched against fellow republican and former-POW John McCain in the primaries), Bush’s true military records suddenly turned up but on documents provided to CBS News anchor, Dan Rather. These were supposedly records written by Texas ANG Colonel Jerry Killian alleging Bush’s preferential treatment. The documents were obtained from Bill Burkett of the Texas ANG. Unfortunately, the documents, now known as the “Killian documents,” although never proven to be fake, were probably faked and deliberately clumsy-easy to disprove. When Rather was caught with his pants down, unable to prove the authenticity of the documents, the whole mess disappeared virtually overnight-dismissed by a public hellbent on reelecting Bush.
What was conveniently missed, however, was the fact even those people who had originally asserted the documents were fake nevertheless asserted that the incidents described in them were true. But by that time, the public did not care. Neck deep in a war he started by deceiving the public and entranced by Bush’s vision of a world stage dominated and run by the superpower called America, that same public inexcusably wanted Bush back for a second term and they were not interested in insignificant things as fact and truth to aid them in their decision-making. If getting America into a hopeless, bloody war with a country he invaded under provably false pretexts, running up the price of oil, squandering the nation’s surplus in order to open the deficit wider than it has ever previously been is not enough to convince the American public that George Bush is unfit to be their president then nothing will.
So what were these true incidents that were described in the bogus Killian documents and is there any verification of them? In fact, yes. Smith’s book contains detailed photocopies of official military and Pentagon documents released by the White House as well as some rather revealing transcripts of exchanges between reporters and White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan concerning Bush’s shadowy military past.
Here is the story as these official records tell it:
George Bush enlisted for six years in May of 1968 just prior to graduating from Yale, his father’s alma mater (where, like his father, young Bush was tapped for Skull & Bones). Upon graduation, Bush’s deferment would have expired making him eligible for the draft and therefore for service in Vietnam. While Bush and his defenders insist the president who started the Iraq War was not trying to get out of being sent to Vietnam, Bush’s enlistment in the Air National Guard was for precisely that reason. On his 104-5 form (Application for Extended Active Duty) in 1968 in answer to the question of what his assignment preferences were, Bush checked the box labeled, “DO NOT VOLUNTEER FOR OVERSEAS,” a clear indication that he had no intention of going to Vietnam. Maybe he changed his mind later? No. Bush himself stated to the Houston Chronicle in 1994, “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 how to fly airplanes.” He also told the Washington Post, “I’m saying to myself, ‘What do I want to do?’ I think I don’t want to be an infantry guy in Vietnam.” Twenty years or more after the war’s end, Bush makes clear he never had any intention of fighting in that war.
Bush signed on with the 147th Fighter-Interceptor Group of the Texas Air National Guard at Ellington AFB in Houston. There was nothing particular unethical in this by itself. Many men joined the National Guard or an ANG unit to avoid service in Vietnam. But in the case of Bush, he was jumped ahead of some 100,000 people on a waiting list for a billet in the Texas ANG. At this time, George Herbert Walker Bush was a Houston congressman and he prevailed upon one of his best friends, influential oilman Sid Adger, to get the Texas House speaker, Ben Barnes (also a former lieutenant governor), to pull some strings to get his son into the Texas ANG.
In 2004, Barnes spoke candidly of the favor: “I called [Brigadier General James] Rose to get George Bush into the Guard…and I’m not proud of it now.” Also: “I would describe it as preferential treatment,” Barnes admitted, “It’s not something I’m necessarily proud of…I’m very sorry.” Barnes admitted in a legal deposition that Adger had, in fact, asked him to pull strings for Bush so he could get into ANG after the Dallas Morning News broke the story in September of 1999.
Other strange items to be found in Bush’s records include his promotion to second lieutenant (O-1) while stationed at Moody AFB in Georgia. Quite simply, he was ineligible. He did not have the ROTC background required for the promotion. He never attended Officer Candidate School, which also would have made him eligible. The only other enlistees who could attain this rank without ROTC or OCS were qualified Medical Doctors-MDs-who sign on as flight surgeons. Needless to say, Bush was not one of those. To this day, no one has yet explained how Bush received a promotion he was ineligible for (which also raises the question of what qualified candidate was passed over in order to show this favoritism to Bush).
The blatant favoritism being shown Bush could be tolerable were he an exceptional pilot but records also show that Bush was overall a bad pilot. When he enlisted in the Texas ANG, his pilot aptitude score is clearly listed as 25 out of a possible 100, which is a barely passing grade. However, for the next three years, Bush began to blossom as a pilot. He graduated as a qualified pilot of the single-seat F-102A fighter jet-nothing to sneeze at. He received high praise from his seniors and even got a write-up in the local papers. His records indicated that he was “certified combat ready” in 1970. Shortly afterwards, he was recommended for promotion to first lieutenant (O-2) which was approved.
Bush continued to receive high praise from his seniors and to make good progress in his training as a pilot until 1972. Suddenly and quite inexplicably, George Bush’s military career began to head south. Not only did his marks fall but after April of that year, the payroll records do not record him as being paid. In fact, the records do not mention him at all. He was gone.
Bush did not show up for his physical in May of 1972 and was not seen at the Ellington base for several months if at all. On May 24, he requested a transfer to the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron in Montgomery, Alabama but was ineligible because it was a postal unit with no training or aircraft! By September 5th, Bush had lost his flying status and was grounded due to his missed physical. The suspension was ordered in a memo by Colonel Bobby Hodges of the Texas ANG. That very day, Bush put in a request chit for a transfer to the 187th Tac Recon Group at Dannelly ANGB in Montgomery for the months of September, October and November. The chit was addressed to Lt. Col. Killian and, strangely, was simply signed “George,” which goes against every military protocol I know of. Killian signed the chit. Captain Lott in Montgomery also signed it but noted Bush could not “satisfy his flight requirements with our group” due to his non-flying status.
Apparently, Bush did not care. The evidence would indicate that his purpose for going to Montgomery had nothing to do with meeting his military requirements. Ostensibly, he was going to Alabama to work on the political campaign of Winton M. “Red” Blount. However, Bush did not appear to be fulfilling his military duties at all. In fact, Bush never reported to the 187th unit. No records indicate he ever reported and nobody from that unit remembers him there other than one John Calhoun who says he saw Bush there but claimed this was from May through October when nobody knows where Bush was. Certainly, he was not at Dannelly and wouldn’t put the request chit in to go there until September.
One odd item is a Standard Form 603, a health/dental record dated January 6, 1973 at Dannelly ANGB where a 1st Lieutenant George Walker Bush is listed as receiving a dental exam. There is no other indication he was ever at the Montgomery base or that he had ever been in Montgomery at all. Moreover, he was supposed to have been back in Texas by January (in fact, by December) and yet there are no records that he had any reason to still be in Alabama in January. To this day, Bush’s solitary appearance at the base dentist’s office (if he ever really was there) in Montgomery on January 6th has never been explained.
Also unexplained is Bush’s sudden disinterest in continuing his pilot training. He had apparently been doing quite well but then seemed to have lost his nerve. He was twice unable to land his F-102 on a flight simulator-a man who was “certified combat ready” a short time before. In February of 1972, Bush was downgraded to a two-seat training craft, the T-33. He never regained his status as a qualified F-102 pilot and, in fact, never regained his pilot status after being grounded. Moreover, his request to be moved to a unit that had no aircraft or training even before he had been grounded indicates he had no intention of flying again.
Even stranger than Bush’s odd single appearance at the Dannelly dentist office, there is no evidence he ever returned to Houston. There were some training drills he was assigned to and he is listed as having racked up a few points for them but certainly by May he was gone from Houston. This is undeniable because his annual review, which came up that month, shows us that his senior, Lt. Col. William Harris, Jr. as having listed every facet of Bush’s performance as “NOT OBSERVED.” Does that mean Bush was not there? Yes. If he were there, his seniors would be required to evaluate him.
Moreover, Lt. Col. Harris wrote, “Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of report. A civilian occupation made it necessary for him to move to Montgomery, Alabama. He cleared this base on 15 May 1972 and has been performing equivalent training in a non flying status with the 187 Tac Recon Gp, Dannelly ANG Base, Alabama.” At the bottom of the page, Lt. Col. Killian writes, “I concur with the comments of the reporting official.”
And so there is a big, big problem with George Bush’s military records. Despite his own statements that he returned to Houston at the end of 1972, we see that by May of 1973, he had not been there for a good year! They thought he was at Dannelly in Alabama but we know he was not there either! Nobody there remembers him and he never received an evaluation from the commander of the 187th who later stated unequivocally that he had neither seen nor met Bush. If Bush was there at all, it appears to have been for a single day in January 1973 to get his teeth looked at. Where was he the rest of the time?
Scott McClellan insists that the records show Bush was present because he was getting paid and one only gets paid for being there. But if no one says anything, Bush could easily have been receiving an unearned paycheck at least for short periods. Moreover, the pay records show unequivocally that Bush was absent from the military from April 16, 1972 to May 1, 1973. There are no records of where Bush was during much of this time. And no explanation from Mr. McClellan is forthcoming.
Bush, as far as can be ascertained, was AWOL-absent without official leave. Yet there was no punishment for his dereliction and absence. At least there is no record of punishment or disciplining. Quite simply, strings were being undeniably pulled for the hapless lieutenant. His being allowed into the Texas ANG we already know was favoritism. His promotion to O-1 certainly appears to be favoritism since he wasn’t eligible to be an O-1. His request chit being approved even though he signed it with only his first name certainly appears to be favoritism (in my own military experience, I have never heard of anything like that being allowed), his acceptance to the 187th despite his grounded status certainly appears to be favoritism, his unexplained and prolonged absence seems to have been swept under a rug. Where was he?
While in Houston, Bush lived at the Chateaux Dijon apartment complex. This complex was populated mainly by young officers and had the reputation of a place of heavy partying. Bush was no exception. He was known to engage in these activities with great gusto. Bush himself admits to having an alcohol problem in those days (and also claims to have solved it without needing AA or any other type of program). There are, of course, the rumors that Bush was heavily into cocaine at the time also (which he denies naturally). This has led to speculation that Bush may have skipped his physical to avoid the drug test that is part of it. The booze or the drugs may have contributed to the loss of his flight skills. In his records, Bush admits to paying fines for traffic violations and getting in a couple of accidents. These, of course, could be incidental events of no consequence or could indicate he drove under the influence. There are also the rumors that Bush had, in fact, been busted and was sentenced to community service during those months he was absent from the Guard. Nor were those rumors unfounded.
When asked point-blank whether Bush was doing community service during the time he was AWOL from the Guard, Scott McClellan consistently evades a yes or no answer. The following is a verbatim excerpt of such a conversation from February 13, 2004:
Q: Did the President ever have to take time off from Guard duty to do community service?
McClellan: To do community service? I haven’t looked into everything he did thirty years ago, Helen. Obviously, there is different community service he has performed in the past, including going back to that time period-
Q: Can you find out if he actually had-
McClellan: Helen, I don’t think we remember every single activity he was involved in thirty years ago.
Q: No, this isn’t an activity. Was he forced to do community service at any time while he was on-
McClellan: What’s your interest in that question? I’m sorry, I just-
Q: Lots of rumors. I’m just trying to clear up something.
McClellan: Rumors about what?
Q: Pardon?
McClellan: Rumors about what?
Q: About the President having to do community service while he was in the National Guard, take time out for that.
McClellan: I’m not aware of those rumors. But if you want to-
Q: Could you look it up? Would you mind asking him?
McClellan: That’s why I’m asking what’s your interest in that? I just don’t understand your interest in that.
Q: It’s what everybody is interested in, whether we’re getting the true story on his Guard duty.
McClellan: Well, you have the documents that show the facts.
This transcript drags on like this for several pages. McClellan simply refuses to answer the question with a simple yes or no even when prompted to by the reporters present. Did or didn’t Bush perform community service? Yes or no? Instead, McClellan admits in tongue-in-cheek fashion that Bush performed “different community service” back then. And we should be properly puzzled by the press secretary asking what is our interest in this issue? Should we not be interested if our president as a military officer was required by law to perform community service that interfered with his military duties? He must have broken the law and was trying to stay out of jail. What law did he break? Why was he not listed as AWOL? The military does not excuse one’s absence because one got thrown in jail or legally sentenced to perform extra-military activities that interfere with military duties. McClellan either knows Bush was performing community service during his absence from the Texas ANG or he has no idea where Bush was at that time and was afraid the reporters had dug something up he was not aware of and so was reluctant to engage in firm denials. Either way, something is wrong.
One year to the day that Bush requested a transfer from Ellington to Dannelly, Bush sent another request chit to Lt. Col. Killian on September 5, 1973 that read: “I respectfully request my discharge from the Texas Air National Guard and reassignment to ARPC (NARS) effective 1 October 1973, I am moving to Boston, Massachusetts to attend Harvard Business School as a full time student. I have enjoyed my association with the 111th Ftr Intcp Sq and the 147th Ftr Intcp Gp.” The chit is signed “George W Bush.” Killian approved the chit on the following day. Was Bush still at Ellington AFB in Houston? When did he return and from where? No records of any sort indicate that he was really in Houston. Why was Bush requesting a discharge and transfer to Denver if his reason for terminating his service was to attend school in Massachusetts? Indeed, if he was asking for a discharge, why then request to be transferred at all?
Bush’s military record states that he was officially given an honorable discharge from the Guard on October 1, 1973. At the bottom of the discharge form is written, “Officer has a six year obligation under the provisions of the 10 USC 651…and has completed 5 years, 4 months, and 5 days toward this obligation.” The form was signed by Major Rufus Martin of the 147th. Why Bush was not required to fulfill the full six-year obligation is not stated. The reason for the termination was given as, “Officer is transferred to ARPC (ORS), 3800 York St, Denver, Colorado 80205 effective 2 October 1973.” Bizarrely enough, at the blank where Bush is to sign is instead the typewritten statement: “NOT AVAILABLE FOR SIGNATURE.” Bush was not present at his own discharge! He was not at Ellington AFB!
Dan Bartlett, Bush’s communications director, tried to cover for his boss in 1999 by explaining to the Washington Post that Bush had finished his full Guard duties at an Air Force Reserve unit in Boston. Unfortunately for Bartlett, the Boston Globe was leading the charge in the 2004 election year in the investigation of Bush’s military service. After a thorough check, the evidence was so overwhelming that Bush had never served in the Boston reserves that Bartlett backed off telling the Globe in 2004, “I must have misspoke.”
This is all the more odd because a document released under the Freedom of Information Act details Bush’s military history and has him being discharged from the Guard on November 21, 1974 from “HQ ARPC (ORS)” in Denver. According to this document, Bush had been there since October 2nd having transferred over from Ellington AFB the day before and states that Bush had been stationed in Houston since 1969. This does not square with Bush’s own seniors at Ellington stating that Bush had been absent for at least a year. The document does not mention any time served at the 187th at Dannelly ANGB in Montgomery, Alabama. There are also no discharge papers to suggest Bush was ever in Denver. Bush was officially discharged on October 1, 1973 in Houston. Nor is there any explanation for why Bush was discharged more than six months after his end of obligated service assuming the November 21, 1974 discharge date to be factual.
I recently pulled out my own military records and pieced together my own service history from those records to see if there were any gaps. I never got into any type of trouble with the law nor was I ever absent without authorization. If gaps appeared in my own records, then perhaps Bush’s could be forgiven. I was in the service for the same amount of time as Bush-six years. While there would be no way to know everything I did while in the service, there were no gaps. Every duty station was accounted for and the chronology lined up. Even all my leave chits were there. This only makes sense because if I changed duty stations, I had to carry my own records with me and before I could get settled in at the new station, I had to check in and the proper forms were then filled out and entered into my records and dated. When I left a station, that too would require more forms to be filled out and entered. One’s military records are never filled out after the fact but always as things happen. This makes accidental gaps in the record virtually impossible.
Hence there is no way the gaps in Bush’s military records are simply happenstance or sloppy bookkeeping. The gaps are there because Bush was gone during those times. Everywhere he says he went during those gaps do not jibe with reality or cannot be verified one way or another. Again, where was he?
During the 2004 primaries and election campaigns, John Kerry met men who had served with him in Vietnam. Sometimes they were lifelong friends that came to see him speak or were guys Kerry had lost touch with over the years but they always recognized one another. No one has ever been able to show that Kerry or any of these men were lying about their service. President Bush, however, has no such luxury. By telling the public he belonged to a unit he applied for but never served in, Bush painted himself into a corner. No one from that unit has ever greeted him as an old comrade. Why didn’t he say he served in Texas since it can be shown he was known and recognized there? Because his military career fell apart there and he appears to have left Texas to escape his failures. Despite his sporadic appearances in Houston and Montgomery, there really is no evidence Bush actually continued serving in any meaningful capacity after April 16, 1972. That ought to be his true discharge date.
Nor was this the only time Bush has lied about his military service. When he ran for office in Texas in 1978, he told voters that he had served in the Air Force. Of course, Bush’s opponents were quick to point out that he was in the Air National Guard and not the Air Force and Bush lost his bid for office. Why did he tell his constituents that he was Air Force rather than ANG? Probably because “Air Force” implies serving time in Vietnam and “Air National Guard” implies a way for rich boys to avoid time in Vietnam. So the rich boy who spent his early post-graduate years carefully avoiding that war then tried to make it sound as though he had not tried to avoid it so that people would think him at least potentially a heroic personality and vote for him. It didn’t work. Yet, in his later years, Bush would shamelessly resort to hypocritically attacking the military service of his opponents who definitely did time in Vietnam such as John Kerry, Al Gore and Wesley Clark. Apparently, this has become an acceptable republican tactic since Dan Quayle called Bill Clinton a draft-dodger even though he himself had strings pulled by his father so that Quayle could get into the Indiana Guard to avoid service in Vietnam. Clinton, at least, never tried to hide his anti-war past nor disparage those that did or did not go.
The most galling thing about Bush’s military service is the way he took it all for granted. While most of the 100,000 men waiting to get into the Texas ANG were praying to get chosen, Bush simply waltzed past them all. If this was supposed to make him grateful for privilege, he didn’t show it much. Even though his billet in the ANG was keeping out of a war he absolutely did not want to be sent to fight in, Bush, like the selfish, spoiled brat of privilege that he is, simply discarded his Guard duties when he decided he didn’t want to fly anymore (even though one of the forms he signed promised to make flying a lifelong pursuit). While someone was sent to Vietnam in Bush’s stead so he could snag a billet in the Guard, he simply lost interest four years into his six-year obligation and walked away. Not only did he blow off his obligation that kept him out of Vietnam, he was being allowed to get away with it. The spotty appearances at this post and that seem to be just that-spotty; as though it was being done for the sake of appearances. Nor do I believe Bush was at any of those posts. I think phone calls from high places caused forms and papers to be filled out for Bush at those posts. Bush wasn’t even present to sign his own discharge papers. Where he really was at the time is anybody’s guess.
Do we see a pattern here? We do indeed. We see a man who, all his life, has blown people off. We see a man who wants to be allowed to do anything he wants when he wants to. When someone says no, he ignores them and does what he wants to anyway. He ignored his Guard duty when it no longer suited him. He ignored his intelligence gathering networks when they told him what he didn’t want to hear. He ignored U.N. inspectors frantically pleading with him for just three more months to look for WMDs. He ignored other nations who protested his actions and behavior. He ignored his father who counseled not to invade Baghdad. He ignores, by his own admission, newspapers and television and so has no clue what goes on in the world. He is entirely dependent on his aides to clue him in to current events. But they are terrified to give him bad news because he blows up at them if they tell what he does not want to hear. So while a major hurricane bore down on the Gulf Coast, Bush went blithely on his way to Arizona to give a speech because none of his staffers dared tell him what was happening to New Orleans, Biloxi and Mobile. The next morning, the staffers called a meeting and picked one among them to tell the tyrant that a major U.S. city had just been wiped out while he was accepting a guitar he can’t play. True to character, Bush blew up at having to cut his vacation two whole days short. As I said, this is a selfish, spoiled brat of privilege in a man’s body. This is a man who deliberately shuts himself off from the world and then gets mad when the world goes on without him. I think the country should go on without him.
Postscript: Gary Trudeau, creator of the Doonesbury comic strip, has offered to donate $10,000 to the USO if anyone can come up with authentic records proving that George W. Bush had served any time with the 187th in Montgomery, Alabama as he claims. The political organization Texans for Truth significantly sweetened the pot with a $50,000 offer for the same. So far neither prize has been claimed.
A Concise History of George W. Bush
I don’t know if anyone has read the 2004 book, Unfit Commander by Glenn W. Smith, but it examines the military history of George W. Bush. As we know, there was a big hullabaloo concerning Bush’s military service in the late 60s and early 70s during the 2004 reelection year. The way it was resolved was as completely unsatisfactory as it was unsettling.
The whole thing started when Bush himself in his speeches made reference to serving as an officer and pilot in the 187th ANG unit stationed in Montgomery, Alabama. A former lieutenant colonel in that unit, Robert Mintz, was shocked. “I 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.’ 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.”
Another officer in that unit along with Mintz, former Second Lieutenant Joseph Chastain, supply squadron supervisor, backed Mintz’s recollection about Bush’s service in the 187th: “I feel quite certain,” said Chastain, “I would have remembered if he had worked with me.”
The very man who would have been Bush’s commander in Alabama, Lieutenant Colonel William Turnipseed stated that he had no recollection of Bush. When asked by Newsweek about Bush’s service in Alabama, Turnipseed’s personnel chief from that time, Captain Kenneth Lott, replied, “I never saw the man, I never met the man.”
Nor do any enlisted men in the unit remember seeing Bush in Montgomery. Willard Hill was a sergeant and personnel section supervisor for the 187th. “I’ve really thought about it,” Hill said, “and I have to say I have no knowledge of him.”
Rodger S. Garrett, the command post sergeant of the 187th flight operations center, had this to say about working alongside the future president: “I don’t have any recollection at all…zero, none.”
Investigative reporters were off and running. Where did George Bush serve if not in the 187th in Montgomery? If he did not serve there, why was he telling the country he did? They dug into Bush’s background and quizzed the White House repeatedly about Bush’s records.
After months of stonewalling by the White House to provide Bush’s military records with excuses approaching the surreal (e.g. the microfilm on which the records were transferred were allegedly so brittle they crumbled to dust as if they were unearthed alongside the Dead Sea Scrolls instead of from the 1970s and 80s) and an unbelievably tactless and unconscionable attack on John Kerry’s undeniable military service in Vietnam in the so-called “Swiftboat” campaign (a similar attack was launched against fellow republican and former-POW John McCain in the primaries), Bush’s true military records suddenly turned up but on documents provided to CBS News anchor, Dan Rather. These were supposedly records written by Texas ANG Colonel Jerry Killian alleging Bush’s preferential treatment. The documents were obtained from Bill Burkett of the Texas ANG. Unfortunately, the documents, now known as the “Killian documents,” although never proven to be fake, were probably faked and deliberately clumsy-easy to disprove. When Rather was caught with his pants down, unable to prove the authenticity of the documents, the whole mess disappeared virtually overnight-dismissed by a public hellbent on reelecting Bush.
What was conveniently missed, however, was the fact even those people who had originally asserted the documents were fake nevertheless asserted that the incidents described in them were true. But by that time, the public did not care. Neck deep in a war he started by deceiving the public and entranced by Bush’s vision of a world stage dominated and run by the superpower called America, that same public inexcusably wanted Bush back for a second term and they were not interested in insignificant things as fact and truth to aid them in their decision-making. If getting America into a hopeless, bloody war with a country he invaded under provably false pretexts, running up the price of oil, squandering the nation’s surplus in order to open the deficit wider than it has ever previously been is not enough to convince the American public that George Bush is unfit to be their president then nothing will.
So what were these true incidents that were described in the bogus Killian documents and is there any verification of them? In fact, yes. Smith’s book contains detailed photocopies of official military and Pentagon documents released by the White House as well as some rather revealing transcripts of exchanges between reporters and White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan concerning Bush’s shadowy military past.
Here is the story as these official records tell it:
George Bush enlisted for six years in May of 1968 just prior to graduating from Yale, his father’s alma mater (where, like his father, young Bush was tapped for Skull & Bones). Upon graduation, Bush’s deferment would have expired making him eligible for the draft and therefore for service in Vietnam. While Bush and his defenders insist the president who started the Iraq War was not trying to get out of being sent to Vietnam, Bush’s enlistment in the Air National Guard was for precisely that reason. On his 104-5 form (Application for Extended Active Duty) in 1968 in answer to the question of what his assignment preferences were, Bush checked the box labeled, “DO NOT VOLUNTEER FOR OVERSEAS,” a clear indication that he had no intention of going to Vietnam. Maybe he changed his mind later? No. Bush himself stated to the Houston Chronicle in 1994, “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 how to fly airplanes.” He also told the Washington Post, “I’m saying to myself, ‘What do I want to do?’ I think I don’t want to be an infantry guy in Vietnam.” Twenty years or more after the war’s end, Bush makes clear he never had any intention of fighting in that war.
Bush signed on with the 147th Fighter-Interceptor Group of the Texas Air National Guard at Ellington AFB in Houston. There was nothing particular unethical in this by itself. Many men joined the National Guard or an ANG unit to avoid service in Vietnam. But in the case of Bush, he was jumped ahead of some 100,000 people on a waiting list for a billet in the Texas ANG. At this time, George Herbert Walker Bush was a Houston congressman and he prevailed upon one of his best friends, influential oilman Sid Adger, to get the Texas House speaker, Ben Barnes (also a former lieutenant governor), to pull some strings to get his son into the Texas ANG.
In 2004, Barnes spoke candidly of the favor: “I called [Brigadier General James] Rose to get George Bush into the Guard…and I’m not proud of it now.” Also: “I would describe it as preferential treatment,” Barnes admitted, “It’s not something I’m necessarily proud of…I’m very sorry.” Barnes admitted in a legal deposition that Adger had, in fact, asked him to pull strings for Bush so he could get into ANG after the Dallas Morning News broke the story in September of 1999.
Other strange items to be found in Bush’s records include his promotion to second lieutenant (O-1) while stationed at Moody AFB in Georgia. Quite simply, he was ineligible. He did not have the ROTC background required for the promotion. He never attended Officer Candidate School, which also would have made him eligible. The only other enlistees who could attain this rank without ROTC or OCS were qualified Medical Doctors-MDs-who sign on as flight surgeons. Needless to say, Bush was not one of those. To this day, no one has yet explained how Bush received a promotion he was ineligible for (which also raises the question of what qualified candidate was passed over in order to show this favoritism to Bush).
The blatant favoritism being shown Bush could be tolerable were he an exceptional pilot but records also show that Bush was overall a bad pilot. When he enlisted in the Texas ANG, his pilot aptitude score is clearly listed as 25 out of a possible 100, which is a barely passing grade. However, for the next three years, Bush began to blossom as a pilot. He graduated as a qualified pilot of the single-seat F-102A fighter jet-nothing to sneeze at. He received high praise from his seniors and even got a write-up in the local papers. His records indicated that he was “certified combat ready” in 1970. Shortly afterwards, he was recommended for promotion to first lieutenant (O-2) which was approved.
Bush continued to receive high praise from his seniors and to make good progress in his training as a pilot until 1972. Suddenly and quite inexplicably, George Bush’s military career began to head south. Not only did his marks fall but after April of that year, the payroll records do not record him as being paid. In fact, the records do not mention him at all. He was gone.
Bush did not show up for his physical in May of 1972 and was not seen at the Ellington base for several months if at all. On May 24, he requested a transfer to the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron in Montgomery, Alabama but was ineligible because it was a postal unit with no training or aircraft! By September 5th, Bush had lost his flying status and was grounded due to his missed physical. The suspension was ordered in a memo by Colonel Bobby Hodges of the Texas ANG. That very day, Bush put in a request chit for a transfer to the 187th Tac Recon Group at Dannelly ANGB in Montgomery for the months of September, October and November. The chit was addressed to Lt. Col. Killian and, strangely, was simply signed “George,” which goes against every military protocol I know of. Killian signed the chit. Captain Lott in Montgomery also signed it but noted Bush could not “satisfy his flight requirements with our group” due to his non-flying status.
Apparently, Bush did not care. The evidence would indicate that his purpose for going to Montgomery had nothing to do with meeting his military requirements. Ostensibly, he was going to Alabama to work on the political campaign of Winton M. “Red” Blount. However, Bush did not appear to be fulfilling his military duties at all. In fact, Bush never reported to the 187th unit. No records indicate he ever reported and nobody from that unit remembers him there other than one John Calhoun who says he saw Bush there but claimed this was from May through October when nobody knows where Bush was. Certainly, he was not at Dannelly and wouldn’t put the request chit in to go there until September.
One odd item is a Standard Form 603, a health/dental record dated January 6, 1973 at Dannelly ANGB where a 1st Lieutenant George Walker Bush is listed as receiving a dental exam. There is no other indication he was ever at the Montgomery base or that he had ever been in Montgomery at all. Moreover, he was supposed to have been back in Texas by January (in fact, by December) and yet there are no records that he had any reason to still be in Alabama in January. To this day, Bush’s solitary appearance at the base dentist’s office (if he ever really was there) in Montgomery on January 6th has never been explained.
Also unexplained is Bush’s sudden disinterest in continuing his pilot training. He had apparently been doing quite well but then seemed to have lost his nerve. He was twice unable to land his F-102 on a flight simulator-a man who was “certified combat ready” a short time before. In February of 1972, Bush was downgraded to a two-seat training craft, the T-33. He never regained his status as a qualified F-102 pilot and, in fact, never regained his pilot status after being grounded. Moreover, his request to be moved to a unit that had no aircraft or training even before he had been grounded indicates he had no intention of flying again.
Even stranger than Bush’s odd single appearance at the Dannelly dentist office, there is no evidence he ever returned to Houston. There were some training drills he was assigned to and he is listed as having racked up a few points for them but certainly by May he was gone from Houston. This is undeniable because his annual review, which came up that month, shows us that his senior, Lt. Col. William Harris, Jr. as having listed every facet of Bush’s performance as “NOT OBSERVED.” Does that mean Bush was not there? Yes. If he were there, his seniors would be required to evaluate him.
Moreover, Lt. Col. Harris wrote, “Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of report. A civilian occupation made it necessary for him to move to Montgomery, Alabama. He cleared this base on 15 May 1972 and has been performing equivalent training in a non flying status with the 187 Tac Recon Gp, Dannelly ANG Base, Alabama.” At the bottom of the page, Lt. Col. Killian writes, “I concur with the comments of the reporting official.”
And so there is a big, big problem with George Bush’s military records. Despite his own statements that he returned to Houston at the end of 1972, we see that by May of 1973, he had not been there for a good year! They thought he was at Dannelly in Alabama but we know he was not there either! Nobody there remembers him and he never received an evaluation from the commander of the 187th who later stated unequivocally that he had neither seen nor met Bush. If Bush was there at all, it appears to have been for a single day in January 1973 to get his teeth looked at. Where was he the rest of the time?
Scott McClellan insists that the records show Bush was present because he was getting paid and one only gets paid for being there. But if no one says anything, Bush could easily have been receiving an unearned paycheck at least for short periods. Moreover, the pay records show unequivocally that Bush was absent from the military from April 16, 1972 to May 1, 1973. There are no records of where Bush was during much of this time. And no explanation from Mr. McClellan is forthcoming.
Bush, as far as can be ascertained, was AWOL-absent without official leave. Yet there was no punishment for his dereliction and absence. At least there is no record of punishment or disciplining. Quite simply, strings were being undeniably pulled for the hapless lieutenant. His being allowed into the Texas ANG we already know was favoritism. His promotion to O-1 certainly appears to be favoritism since he wasn’t eligible to be an O-1. His request chit being approved even though he signed it with only his first name certainly appears to be favoritism (in my own military experience, I have never heard of anything like that being allowed), his acceptance to the 187th despite his grounded status certainly appears to be favoritism, his unexplained and prolonged absence seems to have been swept under a rug. Where was he?
While in Houston, Bush lived at the Chateaux Dijon apartment complex. This complex was populated mainly by young officers and had the reputation of a place of heavy partying. Bush was no exception. He was known to engage in these activities with great gusto. Bush himself admits to having an alcohol problem in those days (and also claims to have solved it without needing AA or any other type of program). There are, of course, the rumors that Bush was heavily into cocaine at the time also (which he denies naturally). This has led to speculation that Bush may have skipped his physical to avoid the drug test that is part of it. The booze or the drugs may have contributed to the loss of his flight skills. In his records, Bush admits to paying fines for traffic violations and getting in a couple of accidents. These, of course, could be incidental events of no consequence or could indicate he drove under the influence. There are also the rumors that Bush had, in fact, been busted and was sentenced to community service during those months he was absent from the Guard. Nor were those rumors unfounded.
When asked point-blank whether Bush was doing community service during the time he was AWOL from the Guard, Scott McClellan consistently evades a yes or no answer. The following is a verbatim excerpt of such a conversation from February 13, 2004:
Q: Did the President ever have to take time off from Guard duty to do community service?
McClellan: To do community service? I haven’t looked into everything he did thirty years ago, Helen. Obviously, there is different community service he has performed in the past, including going back to that time period-
Q: Can you find out if he actually had-
McClellan: Helen, I don’t think we remember every single activity he was involved in thirty years ago.
Q: No, this isn’t an activity. Was he forced to do community service at any time while he was on-
McClellan: What’s your interest in that question? I’m sorry, I just-
Q: Lots of rumors. I’m just trying to clear up something.
McClellan: Rumors about what?
Q: Pardon?
McClellan: Rumors about what?
Q: About the President having to do community service while he was in the National Guard, take time out for that.
McClellan: I’m not aware of those rumors. But if you want to-
Q: Could you look it up? Would you mind asking him?
McClellan: That’s why I’m asking what’s your interest in that? I just don’t understand your interest in that.
Q: It’s what everybody is interested in, whether we’re getting the true story on his Guard duty.
McClellan: Well, you have the documents that show the facts.
This transcript drags on like this for several pages. McClellan simply refuses to answer the question with a simple yes or no even when prompted to by the reporters present. Did or didn’t Bush perform community service? Yes or no? Instead, McClellan admits in tongue-in-cheek fashion that Bush performed “different community service” back then. And we should be properly puzzled by the press secretary asking what is our interest in this issue? Should we not be interested if our president as a military officer was required by law to perform community service that interfered with his military duties? He must have broken the law and was trying to stay out of jail. What law did he break? Why was he not listed as AWOL? The military does not excuse one’s absence because one got thrown in jail or legally sentenced to perform extra-military activities that interfere with military duties. McClellan either knows Bush was performing community service during his absence from the Texas ANG or he has no idea where Bush was at that time and was afraid the reporters had dug something up he was not aware of and so was reluctant to engage in firm denials. Either way, something is wrong.
One year to the day that Bush requested a transfer from Ellington to Dannelly, Bush sent another request chit to Lt. Col. Killian on September 5, 1973 that read: “I respectfully request my discharge from the Texas Air National Guard and reassignment to ARPC (NARS) effective 1 October 1973, I am moving to Boston, Massachusetts to attend Harvard Business School as a full time student. I have enjoyed my association with the 111th Ftr Intcp Sq and the 147th Ftr Intcp Gp.” The chit is signed “George W Bush.” Killian approved the chit on the following day. Was Bush still at Ellington AFB in Houston? When did he return and from where? No records of any sort indicate that he was really in Houston. Why was Bush requesting a discharge and transfer to Denver if his reason for terminating his service was to attend school in Massachusetts? Indeed, if he was asking for a discharge, why then request to be transferred at all?
Bush’s military record states that he was officially given an honorable discharge from the Guard on October 1, 1973. At the bottom of the discharge form is written, “Officer has a six year obligation under the provisions of the 10 USC 651…and has completed 5 years, 4 months, and 5 days toward this obligation.” The form was signed by Major Rufus Martin of the 147th. Why Bush was not required to fulfill the full six-year obligation is not stated. The reason for the termination was given as, “Officer is transferred to ARPC (ORS), 3800 York St, Denver, Colorado 80205 effective 2 October 1973.” Bizarrely enough, at the blank where Bush is to sign is instead the typewritten statement: “NOT AVAILABLE FOR SIGNATURE.” Bush was not present at his own discharge! He was not at Ellington AFB!
Dan Bartlett, Bush’s communications director, tried to cover for his boss in 1999 by explaining to the Washington Post that Bush had finished his full Guard duties at an Air Force Reserve unit in Boston. Unfortunately for Bartlett, the Boston Globe was leading the charge in the 2004 election year in the investigation of Bush’s military service. After a thorough check, the evidence was so overwhelming that Bush had never served in the Boston reserves that Bartlett backed off telling the Globe in 2004, “I must have misspoke.”
This is all the more odd because a document released under the Freedom of Information Act details Bush’s military history and has him being discharged from the Guard on November 21, 1974 from “HQ ARPC (ORS)” in Denver. According to this document, Bush had been there since October 2nd having transferred over from Ellington AFB the day before and states that Bush had been stationed in Houston since 1969. This does not square with Bush’s own seniors at Ellington stating that Bush had been absent for at least a year. The document does not mention any time served at the 187th at Dannelly ANGB in Montgomery, Alabama. There are also no discharge papers to suggest Bush was ever in Denver. Bush was officially discharged on October 1, 1973 in Houston. Nor is there any explanation for why Bush was discharged more than six months after his end of obligated service assuming the November 21, 1974 discharge date to be factual.
I recently pulled out my own military records and pieced together my own service history from those records to see if there were any gaps. I never got into any type of trouble with the law nor was I ever absent without authorization. If gaps appeared in my own records, then perhaps Bush’s could be forgiven. I was in the service for the same amount of time as Bush-six years. While there would be no way to know everything I did while in the service, there were no gaps. Every duty station was accounted for and the chronology lined up. Even all my leave chits were there. This only makes sense because if I changed duty stations, I had to carry my own records with me and before I could get settled in at the new station, I had to check in and the proper forms were then filled out and entered into my records and dated. When I left a station, that too would require more forms to be filled out and entered. One’s military records are never filled out after the fact but always as things happen. This makes accidental gaps in the record virtually impossible.
Hence there is no way the gaps in Bush’s military records are simply happenstance or sloppy bookkeeping. The gaps are there because Bush was gone during those times. Everywhere he says he went during those gaps do not jibe with reality or cannot be verified one way or another. Again, where was he?
During the 2004 primaries and election campaigns, John Kerry met men who had served with him in Vietnam. Sometimes they were lifelong friends that came to see him speak or were guys Kerry had lost touch with over the years but they always recognized one another. No one has ever been able to show that Kerry or any of these men were lying about their service. President Bush, however, has no such luxury. By telling the public he belonged to a unit he applied for but never served in, Bush painted himself into a corner. No one from that unit has ever greeted him as an old comrade. Why didn’t he say he served in Texas since it can be shown he was known and recognized there? Because his military career fell apart there and he appears to have left Texas to escape his failures. Despite his sporadic appearances in Houston and Montgomery, there really is no evidence Bush actually continued serving in any meaningful capacity after April 16, 1972. That ought to be his true discharge date.
Nor was this the only time Bush has lied about his military service. When he ran for office in Texas in 1978, he told voters that he had served in the Air Force. Of course, Bush’s opponents were quick to point out that he was in the Air National Guard and not the Air Force and Bush lost his bid for office. Why did he tell his constituents that he was Air Force rather than ANG? Probably because “Air Force” implies serving time in Vietnam and “Air National Guard” implies a way for rich boys to avoid time in Vietnam. So the rich boy who spent his early post-graduate years carefully avoiding that war then tried to make it sound as though he had not tried to avoid it so that people would think him at least potentially a heroic personality and vote for him. It didn’t work. Yet, in his later years, Bush would shamelessly resort to hypocritically attacking the military service of his opponents who definitely did time in Vietnam such as John Kerry, Al Gore and Wesley Clark. Apparently, this has become an acceptable republican tactic since Dan Quayle called Bill Clinton a draft-dodger even though he himself had strings pulled by his father so that Quayle could get into the Indiana Guard to avoid service in Vietnam. Clinton, at least, never tried to hide his anti-war past nor disparage those that did or did not go.
The most galling thing about Bush’s military service is the way he took it all for granted. While most of the 100,000 men waiting to get into the Texas ANG were praying to get chosen, Bush simply waltzed past them all. If this was supposed to make him grateful for privilege, he didn’t show it much. Even though his billet in the ANG was keeping out of a war he absolutely did not want to be sent to fight in, Bush, like the selfish, spoiled brat of privilege that he is, simply discarded his Guard duties when he decided he didn’t want to fly anymore (even though one of the forms he signed promised to make flying a lifelong pursuit). While someone was sent to Vietnam in Bush’s stead so he could snag a billet in the Guard, he simply lost interest four years into his six-year obligation and walked away. Not only did he blow off his obligation that kept him out of Vietnam, he was being allowed to get away with it. The spotty appearances at this post and that seem to be just that-spotty; as though it was being done for the sake of appearances. Nor do I believe Bush was at any of those posts. I think phone calls from high places caused forms and papers to be filled out for Bush at those posts. Bush wasn’t even present to sign his own discharge papers. Where he really was at the time is anybody’s guess.
Do we see a pattern here? We do indeed. We see a man who, all his life, has blown people off. We see a man who wants to be allowed to do anything he wants when he wants to. When someone says no, he ignores them and does what he wants to anyway. He ignored his Guard duty when it no longer suited him. He ignored his intelligence gathering networks when they told him what he didn’t want to hear. He ignored U.N. inspectors frantically pleading with him for just three more months to look for WMDs. He ignored other nations who protested his actions and behavior. He ignored his father who counseled not to invade Baghdad. He ignores, by his own admission, newspapers and television and so has no clue what goes on in the world. He is entirely dependent on his aides to clue him in to current events. But they are terrified to give him bad news because he blows up at them if they tell what he does not want to hear. So while a major hurricane bore down on the Gulf Coast, Bush went blithely on his way to Arizona to give a speech because none of his staffers dared tell him what was happening to New Orleans, Biloxi and Mobile. The next morning, the staffers called a meeting and picked one among them to tell the tyrant that a major U.S. city had just been wiped out while he was accepting a guitar he can’t play. True to character, Bush blew up at having to cut his vacation two whole days short. As I said, this is a selfish, spoiled brat of privilege in a man’s body. This is a man who deliberately shuts himself off from the world and then gets mad when the world goes on without him. I think the country should go on without him.
Postscript: Gary Trudeau, creator of the Doonesbury comic strip, has offered to donate $10,000 to the USO if anyone can come up with authentic records proving that George W. Bush had served any time with the 187th in Montgomery, Alabama as he claims. The political organization Texans for Truth significantly sweetened the pot with a $50,000 offer for the same. So far neither prize has been claimed.