Bush A No-Show At Alabama Base, Says Pilot Bob Mintz

[Guest guest]

http://www.memphisflyer.com/content.asp?ID=2834 & onthefly=1

 

BUSH A NO-SHOW AT ALABAMA BASE, SAYS MEMPHIAN

FedEx Pilot Bob Mintz, backed up by a Carolina

colleague, recalls no Dubya at Dannelly AFB in 1972.

 

JACKSON BAKER | 2/13/2004

Print this Article

Copyright 2004 The Memphis Flyer

 

SEE UPDATE -- " ON GUARD -- OR AWOL? " CLICK HERE OR GO

TO

http://www.memphisflyer.com/ADMIN/dailydose.asp?action=EDIT & ID=2837.)

 

MEMPHIS – Two members of the Air National Guard unit

that President George W. Bush allegedly served with as

a young Guard flyer in 1972 had been told to expect

him and were on the lookout for him. He never showed,

however; of that both Bob Mintz and Paul Bishop are

certain.The question of Bush’s presence in 1972 at

Dannelly Air National Guard base in Montgomery,

Alabama – or the lack of it – has become an issue in

the 2004 presidential campaign.Recalls Memphian Mintz,

now 62: “I remember that I heard someone was coming to

drill with us from Texas. And it was implied that it

was somebody with political influence. I was a young

bachelor then. I was looking for somebody to prowl

around with.” But, says Mintz, that “somebody” --

better known to the world now as the president of the

United States -- never showed up at Dannelly in 1972.

Nor in 1973, nor at any time that Mintz, a FedEx pilot

now and an Eastern Airlines pilot then, when he was a

reserve first lieutenant at Dannelly, can remember.

“And I was looking for him,” repeated Mintz, who said

that he assumed that Bush “changed his mind and went

somewhere else” to do his substitute drill. It was not

“somewhere else,” however, but the 187th Air National

Guard Tactical squadron at Dannelly to which the young

Texas flyer had requested transfer from his regular

Texas unit – the reason being Bush’s wish to work in

Alabama on the ultimately unsuccessful U.S. Senate

campaign of family friend Winton " Red " Blount.

 

It is the 187th, Mintz’s unit, which was cited, during

the 2000 presidential campaign, as the place where

Bush completed his military obligation. And it is the

187th that the White House continues to contend that

Bush belonged to – as recently as this week, when

presidential spokesman Scott McClellan released

payroll records and, later, evidence suggesting that

Bush’s dental records might be on file at

Dannelly.“There’s no way we wouldn’t have noticed a

strange rooster in the henhouse, especially since we

were looking for him,” insists Mintz, who has pored

over documents relating to the matter now making their

way around the Internet. One of these is a piece of

correspondence addressed to the 187th’s commanding

officer, then Lt. Col. William Turnipseed, concerning

Bush’s redeployment. Mintz remembers a good deal of

base scuttlebutt at the time about the letter, which

clearly identifies Bush as the transferring party. “It

couldn’t be anybody else. No one ever did that again,

as far as I know.” In any case, he is certain that

nobody else in that time frame, 1972-73, requested

such a transfer into Dannelly. Mintz, who at one time

was a registered Republican and in recent years has

cast votes in presidential elections for independent

Ross Perot and Democrat Al Gore, confesses to “a

negative reaction” to what he sees as out-and-out

dissembling on President Bush’s part. “You don’t do

that as an officer, you don’t do that as a pilot, you

don’t do it as an important person, and you don’t do

it as a citizen. This guy’s got a lot of nerve.”Though

some accounts reckon the total personnel component of

the 187th as consisting of several hundred, the actual

flying squadron – that to which Bush was reassigned –

numbered only “25 to 30 pilots,” Mintz said. “There’s

no doubt. I would have heard of him, seen him,

whatever.” Even if Bush, who was trained on a slightly

different aircraft than the F4 Phantom jets flown by

the squadron, opted not to fly with the unit, he would

have had to encounter the rest of the flying personnel

at some point, in non-flying formations or drills.

“And if he did any flying at all, on whatever kind of

craft, that would have involved a great number of

supportive personnel. It takes a lot of people to get

a plane into the air. But nobody I can think of

remembers him.“I talked to one of my buddies the other

day and asked if he could remember Bush at drill at

any time, and he said, ‘Naw, ol’ George wasn’t there.

And he wasn’t at the Pit, either.’”The “Pit” was The

Snake Pit, a nearby bistro where the squadron’s pilots

would gather for frequent after-hours revelry. And the

buddy was Bishop, then a lieutenant at Dannelly and

now a pilot for Kalitta, a charter airline that in

recent months has been flying war materiel into the

Iraq Theater of Operations.

 

 

" I never saw hide nor hair of Mr. Bush. "

 

“I never saw hide nor hair of Mr. Bush,” confirms

Bishop, who now lives in Goldsboro, N.C., is a veteran

of Gulf War I and, as a Kalitta pilot, has himself

flown frequent supply missions into military

facilities at Kuwait. " In fact, " he quips, mindful of

the current political frame of reference, " I saw more

of Al Sharpton at the base than I did of George W.

Bush. " Bishop voted for Bush in 2000 and believes that

the Iraq war has served some useful purposes – citing,

as the White House does, disarmament actions since

pursued by Libyan president Moammar Khadaffi – but he

is disgruntled both about aspects of the war and about

what he sees as Bush’s lack of truthfulness about his

military record.“I think a commander-in-chief who

sends his men off to war ought to be a veteran who has

seen the sting of battle,” Bishop says. “In Iraq: we

have a bunch of great soldiers, but they are not

policemen. I don’t think he [the president] was well

advised; right now it’s costing us an American life a

day. I’m not a peacenik, but what really bothers me is

that of the 500 or so that we’ve lost almost 80 of

them were reservists. We’ve got an over-extended Guard

and reserve.”

 

Part of the problem, Bishop thinks, is a disconnect

resulting from the president’s own inexperience with

combat operations. And he is well beyond annoyed at

the White House’s persistent claims that Bush did

indeed serve time at Dannelly. Bishop didn’t pay much

attention to the claim when candidate Bush first

offered it in 2000. But he did after the second Iraq

war started and the issue came front and center.“It

bothered me that he wouldn’t ‘fess up and say, Okay,

guys, I cut out when the rest of you did your time. He

shouldn’t have tried to dance around the subject. I

take great exception to that. I spent 39 years

defending my country.”Like his old comrade Mintz,

Bishop, now 65, was a pilot for Eastern Airlines

during their reserve service in 1972 at Dannelly.

Mintz then lived in Montgomery; Bishop commuted from

Atlanta, a two-hour drive away. Mintz and Bishop

retired from the Guard with the ranks of lieutenant

colonel and colonel, respectively.Bishop, especially,

is bitter about the fate of Eastern, which went

bankrupt during the administration of President George

H.W. Bush, the current incumbent’s father. “I watched

my company dissolve under his policies.” Both Bushes

were “children of privilege,” unlike himself and

Mintz. “Our fathers were poor dirt farmers. We would

not have been given the same considerations he and his

father were,” says Bishop, who maintains that, just as

the junior Bush used family and political influence to

jump himself ahead of 500 other flight training

applicants, the senior Bush " apparently " did, too,

when he became a naval aviator during World War Two.

“I applaud him for volunteering, but he should have

waited his turn like everybody else.”But, says Bishop,

“At least I can give him credit for serving his

country.” That is more, he suggested, than can be

granted the younger Bush.Would he consider voting for

the president’s reelection? “Naw, this goes to an

integrity issue. I like either [John] Kerry or [John]

Edwards better.” And who would Mintz be voting for?

“Not for any Texas politicians,” was the Memphian’s

sardonic answer.