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Defense Dept. Seeks Bush's Guard File
Tue Feb 10 14:05:25 2004
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Defense Dept. Seeks Bush's Guard File (washingtonpost.com)
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26843-2004Feb9?language=printer

Defense Dept. Seeks Bush's Guard File

By Lois Romano
Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, February 10, 2004; Page A07

The Defense Department has requested that President Bush's payroll
records from his service in the National Guard be sent to Washington
from a DOD archive in Colorado, to ascertain whether they can be
released to news organizations and public interest groups that have
formally requested them in recent days, according to DOD officials.
Bush, in an interview shown Sunday on NBC's "Meet the
Press," said he would release all his records, including pay stubs, to
put to rest political suggestions that he may not have fulfilled his
duty near the end of his Guard service, from May 1972 to May 1973. The
president also suggested there might not be anything in the records that
has not already been in the public domain.
"I mean, people have been looking for these files for a long period of
time, trust me, and starting in the 1994 campaign for [Texas] governor,"
Bush said. "And I can assure you in the year 2000 people were looking
for those files as well."
Asked in the interview whether he would authorize release of his Guard
records, the president said, "Yes, absolutely."
Bush enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard in 1968, two weeks before
graduating from Yale and at the height of the Vietnam War.
At issue is a 12-month period, commencing in May 1972, when Bush moved
to Alabama to work on a senatorial campaign. He received permission to
transfer to an Alabama unit and was instructed to report to duty there.
There is no definitive evidence in his file that he reported to the
Alabama unit to perform drills; Bush has said he did report and perform
drills.
Bush's personnel records also are vague on what he did in the Texas
Guard after returning to Houston after the Senate election he worked on.
The first date in the records for 1973 is May 29, when they indicate he
attended drills. The records show he attended drills at least 18 times
between May 29 and July 30.
In his annual evaluation, covering the period of May 1972 to April 1973,
Lt. Col. William D. Harris wrote that he could not evaluate Bush because
"he has not been observed" in Houston. Bush left the Guard in October
1973 to attend Harvard Business School.
Bush's service record was explored by the Democrats and the media in
2000 but received new attention recently, when Democratic National
Committee Chairman Terence R. McAuliffe called Bush "AWOL" -- absent
without leave -- during his time in Alabama.
According to military experts familiar with National Guard records,
there are two documents that could indicate whether Bush reported for
drills during that year. One is an annual summary of his points, the
quantitative measure of his service. The summary includes each date he
reported for a drill and how many points he received toward his annual
requirement.
His official personnel record, obtained by The Post in 2000, does not
include a summary of service for the time in Alabama. There is a sheet,
where the name has been torn off, that includes dates for that period,
but there is no way to confirm it refers to Bush because his Social
Security number has been redacted. Also, no one who served in Bush's
Alabama unit at that time has come forward, despite years of publicity
on the subject. The brigadier general Bush was to report to in Alabama
has said he has no recollection of Bush's doing so.
The other documents that should still be available are Bush's payroll
records, which would show what drills Bush was compensated for during
that period. Officials said yesterday that the DOD in Washington would
review the master copy of Bush's payroll records, which have been stored
on microfiche for 30 years at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service
in Denver.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan yesterday told reporters that
everything was made available during the 2000 campaign. "I think that
one of the things you can look at that will help address these questions
is the annual retirement point summaries . . . They show that the
president fulfilled his duties, and that is why he was honorably
discharged," he said.
McClellan said that in 2000, the Bush campaign was informed by the Texas
National Guard that "they did not have them. Obviously, if there's
anything additional, we'll keep you posted."
Staff writer Dana Milbank and researcher Lucy Shackelford contributed to
this report.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company
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( News Media -- Here is your Permission to Report on Bush's Missing Year
Now ! )

And here are "Bush's Military Records", The same ones he told Russert
that probably could Not be Found !! ??

: http://users.cis.net/coldfeet/document.htm
: http://www.thepowerhour.com/press_1.htm