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Politics : SUPPORT OUR TROOPS -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neeka who wrote (3427)	2/10/2004 4:29:24 PM
From: PatiBob	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3592

Here it is: White House Releases Bush Military Records By TERENCE HUNT, AP WASHINGTON (Feb. 10) - The White House, facing election-year questions about President Bush's military service, released pay records and other information Tuesday that it said supports Bush's assertion that he fulfilled his duty as a member of the Air National Guard during the Vietnam war. The material included annual retirement point summaries and pay records that the White House said show that Bush served. ''When you serve, you are paid for that service. These documents outline the days on which he was paid. That means he served. And these documents also show he met his requirements,'' press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters. ''And it's just really a shame that people are continuing to bring this up.'' ''These documents clearly show that the president fulfilled his duties,'' McClellan said. The documents indicate Bush received pay for six days of duty between May and December of 1972 when he was supposed to be on temporary duty in Alabama. There is a five-month stretch in 1972 when he was not paid for service. The records do not indicate what duty Bush performed or where he was. The White House also has not been able to produce fellow guardsmen who could testify that Bush attended guard meetings and drills. ''Obviously we would have made people available'' if they had been found, McClellan said. Sen. John Kerry, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, is regularly accompanied by a ''band of brothers'' of military veterans who served with him in Vietnam. Kerry said Tuesday he has said all he is going to say about Bush's record. ''I just don't have any comment on it,'' Kerry told reporters between campaign stops in Tennessee and Virginia. ''It's not an issue that I chose to create. It's not my record that's at issue and I don't have any questions about it.'' A memo written by retired Lt. Col. Albert Lloyd Jr, at the request of the White House, said a review of Bush's records showed that he had ''satisfactory years'' for the period of 1972-73 and 1973-74 ''which proves that he completed his military obligation in a satisfactory manner.'' Lloyd was personnel director for the Texas Air National Guard from 1969 to 1995 and also had reviewed Bush's military records at the request of his campaign four years ago. Asked why the White House had not publicly brought forward any comrades who had served during the period with Bush, McClellan said, ''Obviously we would have made people available,'' then pointed to Lloyd's statement. The point summaries were released during the 2000 presidential campaign but the pay records were not obtained by the White House until late Monday from the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver, Colo., McClellan said. He said the center, apparently acting on its own, reviewed Bush's records and came up with the pay information. ''It was our impression from the Texas Air National Guard - they stated they didn't have them,'' he said. ''It was also our impression those records didn't exist.'' Bush on Sunday authorized the release of his Guard records. McClellan said the latest material apparently is all of Bush's records. The pay information documented the dates when Bush showed up for Guard duty, the spokesman said. ''You are paid for the dates you served,'' McClellan added. Bush's military record was raised as an issue in the 2000 campaign and was revived this year by Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, who called Bush ''AWOL'' - absent without leave - during a period of his service when he was in Alabama. Asked if the records should end the controversy about Bush's service, McClellan said, ''You have to ask those who made these outrageous accusations if they stand by them in the face of this documentation that demonstrates he served and fulfilled his duties.'' Bush enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard in 1968 shortly before graduating from Yale University. Questions have been raised about whether family connections helped him get into the Guard when there were waiting lists for what was seen as an easy billet. Bush says no one in his family pulled strings and that he got in because others didn't want to commit to the almost two years of active duty required for fighter pilot training. A central issue is whether he showed up for duty while assigned to Guard units in Alabama, where he worked on a political campaign in 1972. ''There may be no evidence, but I did report,'' Bush told NBC's ''Meet the Press'' on Sunday. ''Otherwise, I wouldn't have been honorably discharged.'' Another question is why he was allowed to end Guard duty about six months early to attend Harvard Business School. Bush said on NBC that he had ''worked it out with the military. And I'm just telling you, I did my duty.'' Lloyd has said that Bush's early discharge was not uncommon for pilots or other crewmen who were to leave soon and had been trained on now-obsolete jets, as was Bush's case. 02-10-04 1457EST