Stung!

[Guest guest]

Here is some of the truth about the guy who smeared with lies a

bunch of veterans, who served well, for his political

gain. It is not only right but should be a duty to take a peek at his

record even if it is only the part that is left after

it has been " scrubbed " .

 

 

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/09/bush_guard_duty/index.html

 

Stung!

A swarm of new media stories on young George W. Bush's

dereliction of duty pops his heroic-leadership bubble.

 

- - - - - - - - - - - -

By Eric Boehlert

 

printe-mail

 

Sept. 9, 2004 | On Feb. 13, as controversy swirled

around President Bush's service in the Texas Air

National Guard during the Vietnam War, the White House

released more than 400 pages of documents on the press

corps, proving, it claimed, that Bush had served

honorably and fulfilled his commitment. The sudden

rush of records, often redundant, jumbled and out of

chronological order, generally left reporters baffled.

From Bush's point of view, the document dump was a

political success, as the controversy cooled and the

paper trail ran dry.

 

In retrospect, it's doubtful that even White House

aides understood all the information embedded in the

records, specifically the payroll documents. It's also

unlikely they realized how damaging the information

could be when read in the proper context. Seven months

later, the document dump is coming back to haunt the

White House, thanks to researcher Paul Lukasiak, who

has spent that time closely examining the paperwork,

and more important, analyzing U.S. statutory law,

Department of Defense regulations, and Air Force

policies and procedures of the 1960s and 1970s. As a

result, Lukasiak arrived at the overwhelming

conclusion that not only did Bush walk away from his

final two years of military obligation, coming

dangerously close to desertion, but he attempted to

cover up his absenteeism through swindle and fraud.

 

Lukasiak's findings, detailed on his Web site the AWOL

Project,

http://www.glcq.com/

 

have since been bolstered and augmented by

independent research by the Boston Globe and the

Associated Press. On Wednesday, CBS News reported what

may be among the most damaging details yet:

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/06/politics/main641481.shtml

 

thatBush's squadron commander, the late Col. Jerry

Killian, complained he was being pressured by

higher-ups to give Bush a favorable evaluation after

he suspended him from flying for failure to take his

annual physical exam. Titled " CYA, " Killian's memo

concluded, " I'm having trouble running interference

and doing my job. "

 

But for the last several months, Lukasiak has

practically had the AWOL story to himself, as the

mainstream media mostly seemed silenced by the big

February document release, the daunting task of

decoding military personnel records, and the repeated

refrain from the Bush White House that the president

was honorably discharged. Among the three most

compelling conclusions reached by Lukasiak in his new,

meticulous research, are:

 

# Bush's request to transfer to an Alabama Guard unit

in 1972, in order to work on the Senate campaign of a

family friend, Lukasiak found, was not designed to be

temporary, but rather was Bush's attempt to sever ties

completely with the Texas Air National Guard

 

http://www.glcq.com/trans.htm#_Toc81268477

 

and finda new, permanent unit in Alabama for which he was

ineligible, where he wouldn't have to do any training

during his final two years. His superiors in Texas

essentially covered for Bush's getaway. However, the

Air Reserve Personnel Center (ARPC) in Denver, Colo.,

which had final say, uncovered the attempted scam, put

an end to it, and admonished Bush's superiors for

endorsing Bush's bogus request. (The CBS News report

shows that the locals were chafing at interference

from " higher-ups " presumably connected to the powerful

Bush family.) In the interim, Bush simply ignored his

weekend duties for nearly six straight months, not

bothering to show up at military units in either

Alabama or Texas.

 

# The White House has conceded that Bush missed some

required weekend training drills, but insists Bush

promptly made up those drills and earned enough annual

credits for an honorable discharge. In fact, according

to Lukasiak's research,

 

http://www.glcq.com/fraud_text.htm#_FRAUDULENT_PAY_AND

 

based on the procedures inplace at the time requiring that

makeup dates becompleted within 15 days before or 30 days after the

date of the drill missed, between half and two-thirds

of the points credited to Bush for substitute training

were fraudulent. Some of the points credited to Bush

were " earned " nine weeks beyond the date of the missed

drill. According to Air Force policy, Bush could not

have received permission for substitute training that

far outside the accepted parameters. The evidence is

also overwhelming that Bush failed to get

authorization for substitute training in advance,

suggesting the points were awarded by the Texas Air

National Guard retroactively and without any

supporting paperwork. The fraudulent points are key,

because without them Bush would have fallen far short

of meeting his annual obligation, which meant he

should have been transferred to active duty for 24

months and made eligible for service in Vietnam.

 

# On Oct. 1, 1973, Bush received an honorable

discharge from the Texas Air National Guard in order

to move to Boston and attend Harvard Business School,

where he was still obligated to find a unit in

Massachusetts to fulfill his remaining nine months of

duty, or face being placed on active duty. Once again,

Bush made no such effort. But the Air Force in Denver,

acting retroactively, in effect overturned Bush's

honorable discharge and placed him on " Inactive

Status " effective Sept. 15, 1973. When Bush left

Texas, his personnel file was sent to Denver for

review. The ARPC quickly realized Bush had failed to

take a required physical exam, his Texas superior

could not account for his whereabouts covering nearly

a 12-month period, and because of absenteeism Bush had

failed to " satisfactorily participate " as a member of

the Texas Air National Guard. Bush's " Inactive Status "

meant his relationship with the Air Force (and the

Guard) was severed and he was therefore eligible for

the draft.

 

Soon afterward, large gaps began appearing in Bush's

paper trail. Lukasiak concludes that only last-minute

intervention, likely from Bush's local Houston draft

board, saved him from active duty, as well as finally

securing his honorable discharge, removing his

" Inactive Status. " Ironically, that means strings were

pulled to get Bush out of the Guard in 1973, just as

they were pulled to get him enrolled in 1968.

 

The AWOL Project's conclusions are bound to give Dan

Bartlett concern. The White House director of

communications has served as Bush's point person over

the last five years regarding inquiries about National

Guard service. Dating back to the 2000 campaign and

right up to this day, Bartlett has routinely changed

his stories regarding Bush's service depending on what

information was available to the public. As more and

more documents trickle out and it becomes increasingly

obvious Bush received wildly favorable treatment

during his Guard days while doing his best to skirt

his duties, Bartlett is left trying to stake out

explanations that haven't already been discredited.

And those options are shrinking.

 

Bartlett's latest flip-flop surrounds Bush's failure

to locate a new Guard unit and fulfill his duty while

attending Harvard Business School. In 1999, Bartlett

said Bush had reported for duty at a Massachusetts

Guard unit as required. This week Bartlett conceded to

the Boston Globe he must have " misspoke, " because it's

clear Bush made no effort whatsoever to serve out his

term while living in Boston. That answer is

reminiscent of Bartlett's response during the 2000

campaign when asked about Bush's failure to take a

required military physical in 1972: " As he was not

flying, there was no reason for him to take a flight

physical exam. " But that response is directly

contradicted by the Air Force Specialty Code, which

required a physical regardless of flight status.

 

On Wednesday, Bartlett told CBS News, in response to

Jerry Killian's memos, " It's impossible to read the

mind of a dead man. " He then reverted to his usual

refrain: " The official files tell the facts, " Bartlett

said. " And the facts are President Bush served. He

served honorably. And that's why he was honorably

discharged. "

 

The shifting explanations and obfuscations coming from

the White House are one reason why the Guard story

remains dangerous for Bush. The controversy, after

all, is not merely about how he received a million

dollars' worth of free pilot training and then stiffed

the government when it came time to pay it back in

service. It's also about how, for the last decade,

Bush and his advisors have done everything possible to

distort, if not erase, the truth about Bush's service

record in order to advance his political career.

 

The detailed research from Lukasiak, a Philadelphia

caterer, deals strictly with the contents of Bush's

military service documents, particularly those after

April 1972, when Bush decided -- on his own -- to stop

flying. But what's fascinating is that when recent

news reports from Salon, the Associated Press, CBS and

the Boston Globe are layered on top of the AWOL

Project research, they fit together almost seamlessly,

revealing a vivid portrait of Bush as a young man who

evaded his military service.

 

# Last week Salon reported that in late 1972 George

H.W. Bush phoned a longtime Bush family confidant in

Alabama, Jimmy Allison, to ask if there was room on

the local campaign he was managing for Bush's

troublesome son George, or " Georgie " as he was called.

" The impression I had was that Georgie was raising a

lot of hell in Houston, getting in trouble and

embarrassing the family, and they just really wanted

to get him out of Houston and under Jimmy's wing, "

Linda Allison, his widow, told Salon. " After about a

month I asked Jimmy what was Georgie's job, because I

couldn't figure it out. I never saw him do anything, "

said Allison. Asked if she'd ever seen Bush in a

uniform, Allison said: " Good lord, no. I had no idea

that the National Guard was involved in his life in

any way. "

 

# This week a new advocacy group calling itself Texans

for Truth announced that it will air a television

commercial featuring a former Alabama National Guard

pilot who insists he never saw Bush in 1972 at the

small Guard unit at Dannelly Air National Guard base

in Montgomery, where the president claims he served.

The pilot, Bob Mintz, has told a consistent tale. In

February, he told the Memphis Flyer newspaper:

" There's no way we wouldn't have noticed a strange

rooster in the henhouse, especially since we were

looking for him. " Mintz was referring to the news on

the base that somebody from Texas with political

influence was coming to train with the unit. " I was

looking for him, " Mintz said.

 

# On Wednesday night, on CBS's " 60 Minutes, " in an

interview with Dan Rather, former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben

Barnes went public for the first time about how he

pulled strings to get the young Bush a coveted slot,

at the height of the Vietnam War, in the Texas Air

National Guard. " I've thought about it an awful lot

and you walk through the Vietnam memorial,

particularly at night like I did a few months ago and,

I tell you, ... reflecting back, I'm very sorry about

it, but you know, it happened and it was because of my

ambition, my youth and my lack of understanding. But

it happened and it's not ... something I'm necessarily

proud of. "

 

CBS also reported on four documents from the personal

files of Col. Jerry Killian, Bush's squadron

commander. One memo ordered Bush to take " an annual

physical examination " -- an order he refused. CBS

reports: " On August 1, 1972, Col. Killian grounded Lt.

Bush for failure to perform to U.S. Air Force/Texas

Air National Guard standards and for failure to take

his annual physical as ordered. A year after Lt.

Bush's suspension from flying, Killian was asked to

write another assessment. Killian's memo, titled

'CYA,' reads he is being pressured by higher-ups to

give the young pilot a favorable yearly evaluation;

to, in effect, sugarcoat his review. He refuses,

saying, 'I'm having trouble running interference and

doing my job.' "

 

# This week, the A.P. reported that a thorough

analysis of Bush's military documents indicates

obvious gaps in his service along with equally

gratuitous gaps in his paperwork. Specifically missing

are: " A report from the Texas Air National Guard to

Bush's local draft board certifying that Bush remained

in good standing. " " Records of a required

investigation into why Bush lost flight status. " " A

written acknowledgment from Bush that he had received

the orders grounding him. " " Reports of formal

counseling sessions Bush was required to have after

missing more than three training sessions. " " A signed

statement from Bush acknowledging he could be called

to active duty if he did not promptly transfer to

another guard unit after leaving Texas. "

 

# In February of this year, Salon interviewed Bill

Burkett, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Texas

National Guard, who claims he observed aides to Bush

going through his military file in 1997 to remove any

embarrassing information, tossing documents in the

trash, allegedly the types of documents that might

help answer many of the unanswered questions

surrounding Bush's Guard service. " Activities occurred

in order to, in my opinion, inappropriately build a

false image of the governor's military service, "

Burkett told Salon. Burkett first went public with his

accusations in 1998 and has told the same story

consistently for six years.

 

# Also last February, Salon reported that Bush's

mysterious decision in the spring of 1972 to stop

flying and subsequently refuse to take a physical exam

came at the same time the Air Force announced its

Medical Service Drug Abuse Testing Program, which

meant random drug testing for pilots, including

Guardsmen.

 

Meanwhile, the White House has not been able to

produce anything or anybody with any credibility to

contradict the growing body of evidence that suggests

Bush deliberately walked away from his duties and that

Bush and his handlers continue to lie about his

military service. Retired Lt. Col. John Calhoun was

the one witness who was brought forward this year to

back up Bush's story that he actually showed up in

Alabama. He recalled seeing Bush at training sessions

between " eight to ten times from May to October 1972. "

Yet not even Bush's own payroll records suggest he did

drills in Alabama at the time Calhoun allegedly

spotted him. (Amazingly, ABC News on Wednesday used

Calhoun as a credible witness to bolster Bush's

account, despite the fact that the dates Calhoun cites

don't even match up with Bush's.)

 

There's also no paper trail to support Bush's claim

that he completed any service after 1972. As Lukasiak

notes, each substitute training Bush completed, and

there were many, should have generated authorized AF

Form 40a's: " All told, Bush performed 'substitute

training' on at least 20 days. Thus there should be,

at the very least, 20 AF Form 40a's with the name of

the officer who authorized the training in advance,

the name and signature of the officer who supervised

the training, and Bush's own signature. " But not one

such form exists.

 

A similar absence of information surrounds Bush's

dubious explanation of his attempted transfer to

Alabama. The move should have generated a small

mountain of paperwork. Under normal circumstances, 10

steps are required to transfer:

 

1) The Guardsman announces that he will need to

relocate.

 

2) His personnel officer explains the relocation

policies and procedures to him.

 

3) The Guardsman signs an acknowledgment that he has

received the relocation counseling.

 

4) The personnel officer gives the Guardsman a

certification of satisfactory participation, which he

will need to get approval for a transfer.

 

5) The Guardsman locates an appropriate Ready Reserve

position with a new unit, and submits a " Transfer

Request Form " (Form 1288) and a new " Ready Reserve

Service Agreement (Form 1644), along with the

certification of satisfactory participation, to the

" receiving unit. "

 

6) The receiving unit " indorses " the request on the

back of the Form 1288, and provides the Guardsman with

certification that an appropriate position is

available in that unit.

 

7) The Guardsman gives Form 1288, Form 1644, the

certification of an appropriate position, and a letter

of resignation to his current unit commander.

 

8) The unit commander indorses the request, and

forwards it to the state adjutant general.

 

9) The adjutant general approves the request, and

discharges the Guardsman from the Air National Guard

to the Air Force Reserves.

 

10) The Air Force Reserves assigns the former

Guardsman to his new unit.

 

In Bush's case, according to Lukasiak's research,

" There is no statement of counseling, no certification

of satisfactory performance, no certification of a

suitable vacancy, no letter of resignation, no

discharge papers, no discharge orders, and no

reassignment orders. "

 

There are also indications that Bush -- unwilling to

fly, take a physical or report for duty -- was trying

to mislead Guard officials with his transfer

application. When asked for his permanent address,

Bush listed the P.O. box for the Alabama campaign

headquarters he worked for temporarily. When asked to

note his Air Force Specialty Code, Bush wrote down

1125B, the designation for F-89 or F-94 pilots. At the

time of his transfer request, both of these planes had

been retired from service in all components of the Air

Force, including the Guard and Reserves. Bush's

accurate code was 1125D, designating an F-102 pilot.

At the time, F-102 planes were still very much in use.

It was an error Bush made more than once on the

application. Lukasiak writes: " The odds of Bush being

able to scam his way into a non-training unit [in

Alabama] would be enhanced if his specific skill set

was one which was no longer useful to the Air Force. "

 

In May 1972, Bush was informed that the unit in

Alabama he requested was clearly unsuitable for a

pilot of his stature, yet he pressed on, and his Texas

superiors endorsed the transfer request and submitted

it. But the Denver headquarters caught the scam and

rejected it. The Texas chief of military personnel

sent a curt warning to Bush's unit about the clearly

bogus request: " Attention is invited to basic

communication. "

 

Lukasiak's work has created a storm in the

blogosphere. (He's also a Salon Table Talk member, and

an active thread is devoted to research on Bush's

National Guard service.) He makes no secret of his

conviction that Bush used his family connections to

evade the draft. The AWOL Project concludes: " Bush

simply blew off his last two years of required

service, and was able to get away with it because he

came from a politically influential family. There is

no other explanation for Bush's records. None. "

 

Of course none of that stopped Bush from hyping his

military service as he launched his political career.

In 1978, during an unsuccessful run for Congress in

west Texas, Bush produced campaign literature that

claimed he had served " in the US Air Force and the

Texas Air National Guard. " In 1999, when asked by an

AP reporter why Bush had claimed to have served

specifically with the U.S. Air Force when he'd only

been in the National Guard, Bush spokeswoman Karen

Hughes insisted the claim was accurate because when

Bush attended flight school for the Air National Guard

he was considered to be on active duty for the Air

Force. That was plainly false, as the AP noted, citing

Air Force policy, which stated Guardsmen are never

considered to be members of the Air Force active duty.

 

Just four years after escaping his military

obligations, Bush was already trying to rewrite his

military record for political gain. Bush said he

strongly supported the Vietnam War, obscuring how he

spent several years, after securing a safe spot in the

National Guard, evading his military obligation. Now

President Bush orders Guardsmen and Reservists to

shoulder an unprecedented load -- physically,

financially and emotionally -- in the war in Iraq. As

new information at last begins to emerge about what he

really did, Bush and his aides are still at work

covering up the record. His ultimate war is with the

truth about his past.

 

- - - - - - - - - - - -

 

About the writer

Eric Boehlert is a senior writer at Salon.