His stint with the Air National Guard is debatable:
MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS: Bush's Military Record Under Scrutiny
He Got Special Treatment from the Guard in the 1960s -- And Possibly More Recently
David Case is the executive editor of TomPaine.com.
George magazine last week wrote a story alleging that Governor George W. Bush successfully completed his Texas Air National Guard duty for the years 1972-1973. The article contradicts one in TomPaine.com, written by Marty Heldt, and one by Robert Rogers on Democrats.com.
The George article states: "For more than a year, controversy about George W. Bush's Air National Guard record has bubbled through the press. Interest in the topic has spiked in recent days, as at least two websites have launched stories essentially calling Bush AWOL in 1972 and 1973. For example, in 'Finally, the Truth about Bush's Military Record' on TomPaine.com, Marty Heldt writes, 'Bush's long absence from the records comes to an end one week after he failed to comply with an order to attend 'Annual Active Duty Training' starting at the end of May 1973. ... Nothing indicates in the records that he ever made up the time he missed.'"
"Neither is correct," the article argues. "Bush may have received favorable treatment to get into the Guard, served irregularly after the spring of 1972 and got an expedited discharge, but he did accumulate the days of service required of him for his ultimate honorable discharge."
This piqued our attention. So we decided to re-visit it. And in the end, we wonder whether the evidence doesn't suggest more than that the young George Bush was the recipient of privileged treatment during the Vietnam War. Have his military records benefited from similar special treatment, perhaps since he decided to run for office?
Peter Keating, co-author of the George magazine story, explained to TomPaine.com that his team's conclusions centered on one document, called an ARF Statement of Points Earned. This is essentially an attendance document that tracks when an Air National Guardsman has served, and whether he has fulfilled his annual duty.
This document that George used is far from ideal, a fact that probably accounts for the failure of other journalists to reach the conclusions that Keating and his associates did.
Among other flaws, the upper left portion is torn, removing the name of the soldier to whom it belongs, with the exception of the middle initial W. Also obliterated by the tear are the year and months of service, leaving only the date (for example, for service from 2000 Oct 15 to 2000 Oct 18, only the 18 would remain).
But that's not to say that it should be ignored. After all, Bush's file contains documents detailing the days he served for every year except 1972-1973. There is no attendance document in his file that specifies that he didn't serve during the 1972-1973 year (though there are other documents that do so, as we will explain later). So this document needs to be considered as one that possibly fills that hole.
One of the key contributions the George story adds to the debate is that, through some clever interpretation of the few clues that exist on the torn document, it offers a seemingly strong argument that it must be for the missing year, 1972-1973.
This detective work has caused considerable confusion, but after speaking with Keating we feel it has merit, so we will attempt to elucidate it in the following paragraphs.
First, George matched dates of service on the document against May 1973 "special orders" calling Bush to appear for service. The three dates on the special orders not only correspond to dates on the torn attendance document, but appear in the right chronological order: we know that May was the last month in Bush's attendance reporting period, and the May special order dates appear at the end of the list of dates on the document, where they would be expected.
Second, George deduced that the fourth date on the document must have been January 10th. The tear on the document runs through the column where the month abbreviations should be. In this fourth row, before the number 10, is what appears to be an "N." This -- the only visible clue concerning the month that the service took place -- suggests that the month abbreviation for this date must be Jan or Jun. But, again, we know that Bush's service records are tracked using a calendar year that begins and ends in May. It is clear from the number sequence that, at the very least, two months have passed before the fourth date of service. Therefore, the fourth line could not be June; it must be January 10 -- if you assume the document is Bush's record.
By the same logic, the previous dates on the record could be January 6, December 14, and the first date on the record could be November 29th, a date that the Bush campaign has said (and the New York Times has confirmed) is one that he served. This is also consistent with the idea that he served no time before Election Day, while he was busy working on the Alabama campaign of W. Blount, a candidate for the U.S. Senate.
But a closer look reveals that George's article raises quite a few questions, which cast doubt not on the detective work, but on the article's conclusions: that the torn document is proof that Bush fulfilled his duty for 1972-1973.
First, why would the November 29th date show up on the torn document at all? If, as his former girlfriend Emily Marks has told the Times, Bush served in Alabama after the election, that date would not likely appear on a Texas attendance record. Military sources say that the Guard has long been highly decentralized, and that record keeping is done on a state-by-state basis.
Second, can we be certain that the torn document pertains to Bush? It's possible, though if seems not very likely, that it belongs to another member of his unit with the middle initial W and a similar reporting period (May to May)? Military sources confirm that everyone in Bush's unit would probably have been called for service on the same dates in a given year.
But it's important to note that before Bush decided to run for president, none of the three documents that form the pillars of George's case were in Bush's files, according to undisputed reports in the Boston Globe.
Early on, the Bush camp -- which was apparently concerned about the missing years -- worked with a retired Guard personnel officer named Albert Lloyd, Jr., who has been identified as a friend of Bush's, to make sense of the candidate's records. The Globe reported that Lloyd found the documents in the archives.
Now, public records officials include them in the packet of documents sent in response to Freedom of Information Act inquiries.
Lloyd told the Globe that the torn document bears Bush's social security number. (Such information is redacted from copies that journalists receive.)
At press time, TomPaine.com was unable to verify how the document was introduced into Bush's file, but a source familiar with National Guard record keeping in Texas commented that changing the contents of a guardsman's record would be "very unusual."
Curiously, now two versions of the document exist. One, obtained by George and posted on its website, bears handwritten calculations that add up whether the member to whom the document belongs has satisfied his duty for the year. (George's Keating said that he obtained the documents both through FOIA and other sources, which he wouldn't reveal. He confirmed, however, that the magazine was convinced of the authenticity of the documents it used, and that the handwriting was there when the magazine obtained it, with the exception of the dates scrawled on the bottom of the document, which were added during research.)
Even more intriguing is that whoever wrote on the document most likely did so after the document was torn -- we know this because the two documents include the same tear. Why would someone in the meticulous military culture photocopy a nameless document whose information was almost entirely obliterated, and use it to figure out whether a Guard member had completed his duty? The torn document is clearly computer generated; why wouldn't the person performing the calculations have printed another copy? Or at least scrawled the name down?
Should this lead us to suspect that the document was altered more recently? Is this evidence that someone has tampered with the public records on behalf of the candidate?
Another question: considering the military's obsession with audits, chains of command and official reports, what weight does this torn document carry? After all, it is unsigned, undated and partially obliterated.
In fact, a number of documents in Bush's file offer more convincing evidence that he, in fact, didn't serve during 1972-1973. In Bush's annual evaluation, his commanding officers wrote, "Lieutenant Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of report" -- from May 1, 1972 to April 30, 1973.
Moreover, another document, the Chronological Listing of Service, shows the location and the number of days he served every year, with the exception of 1972-1973. In fact, nowhere except on the torn document is there evidence that he served during that year.
One source familiar with Texas military record keeping says that the paperwork for a member who transfers between states is sometimes lost in the shuffle. But the annual evaluation and the Chronological Listing of Service are important documents, and sources familiar with Guard protocol confirm that Bush would have almost certainly seen these documents, and probably would have discussed them with personnel officers. There would have been ample opportunity for corrections, complete with forms filed and standard military procedure. Yet Bush's file contains no evidence that he objected.
The missing year on these official documents have been further verified by the Boston Globe, the New York Times and other papers, in interviews with Bush's former commanding officers. More recently, several $1000 rewards have gone unclaimed for anyone who can come up with proof that Bush fulfilled his duty during 1972-1973.
Which brings us back to another question. Given the handwriting on the document, and reports that Albert Lloyd was able to alter Bush's file by introducing the two special orders and the torn document, were the governor's friends also able to take documents out? Some students of Bush's Guard service have suggested that, when Bush was suspended from flying in 1972 there should have been a report detailing this -- after all, he had received hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of training. Where is the report?
This is not to say that we completely disagree with George's conclusions; the magazine has put together an intriguing interpretation of difficult to understand documents. It may turn out that First Lieutenant Bush was the victim of bad record keeping, though we think that the balance of evidence suggests otherwise.
No one questions that George W. Bush enjoyed considerable favoritism during the Vietnam War era. He catapulted in front of a long waiting list to get into the Air National Guard, enabling him to soar over the Texas skyline rather than fighting Viet Cong in the sweltering Asian jungle.
But a new question needs to be raised: given the contradictions and inconsistencies in Bush's record, is it possible that he has benefited more recently from special handling of his military record?
The case hasn't been cracked yet. It should be.
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