Bush AWOL in Alabama Part 2:
Taking away a pilot's wings was not a minor decision. During the course of investigating this matter over the past decade, I was told by numerous Guard sources that pilots simply did not skip their physicals for any reason. Bush may have thought this was a good strategy for getting out of his obligation to the Guard. However, there had to be an investigation into his grounding. Normally, a formal board of inquiry would have been convened to examine the pilot's failure to keep his physical status current. At a minimum, a commanding officer would have been expected to write a narrative report on why one of his pilots had been taken off the flight duty roster. Either that report, or the findings of the board of inquiry, would then be sent to the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver and to the Texas Guard headquarters in Austin. A pilot simply did not walk away from all of that training with two years remaining on his tour of duty without a formal explanation as to what happened and why. This narrative report is the document the public has never seen and the Bush White House is unlikely to ever release. Disciplinary action taken against Bush ought to be a part of his personnel record. No such files have ever been disclosed.
When the Bush campaign began pressuring Sen. John Kerry to release his complete military file, Bartlett spoke as though Bush were occupying the moral high ground on the issue. "The president made a pledge before the American people, and he made his complete file available to the media and the public," Bartlett told the Boston Globe. "They were able to review all of his medical records." Bartlett, who acted as liaison between Gov. Bush's administration and the Texas Guard, has insisted all of the president's service points documents, performance sheets, and any existing records have been made public. This is, of course, patently not true. There is nothing that offers a report of disciplinary action against the young pilot, nor has anyone seen pay stubs or a total retirement-points sheet.
And there are simple explanations as to why those documents disappeared. If the materials were ever provided to reporters, it would be an uncomplicated exercise to determine whether Bush served enough time to have met his legal obligation. We would also learn if his grounding was a product of inappropriate behavior for an officer, and if, in fact, the rumors of excessive use of alcohol and drugs played a role in his loss of flight status.
Unlike lawyers, journalists pay little attention to concepts like chain of custody for evidence. In the case of the president's Guard records, whoever possessed them and had the motive and opportunity to clean them up is a critical question. When Bush left the Guard about a half year early to attend Harvard Business School, his hard-copy record was retained in a military personnel records jacket at the Austin offices of the Texas Guard. Eventually, those documents were committed to microfiche. A copy of the microfiche was then sent to the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver and the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. Those records are considered private, and they cannot be released to anyone without the signature of the serviceman or woman. The White House has never indicated that Bush has signed the authorization form. And this is what prompts unending suspicion.
The documents given to Washington reporters were printed from one of those two microfiches. According to two separate sources within the Guard who saw the printout and spoke with me, the microfiche was shipped to the office of Maj. Gen. Danny James, commander of the Air National Guard Bureau in Arlington, Va. James' staff printed out all of the documents on the film and then, according to those same sources, James vetted the material. Subsequent to being scrutinized by James (who commanded the Texas Guard and was promoted to Washington by Bush,) the records were then sent to the White House for further scrutiny prior to release to the news media.
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