[A-List] Bush's military record

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Is it not rather strange that Bush should, now, have to defend himself
against Democratic Party assaults on his military record? All of this could
have been used in his previous electoral campaigns. Could it have something
to do with fellow S&Ber Kerry being a safer pair of hands for those so
concerned to protect their interests?

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Bush's National Guard Pay Records Are Released
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
New York Times: February 11, 2004

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 - The White House released 18 months of President Bush's
National Guard payroll records on Tuesday showing what administration
officials asserted was proof that Mr. Bush had fully completed his service
in the Guard during the Vietnam War.

But the records, which the White House obtained from blurry 30-year-old
microfiche files in Colorado, show only the specific days in 1972 and 1973,
82 in all, that Mr. Bush was paid for his service.

Although Scott McClellan, the White Houses press secretary, the said the
documents "clearly show that the president fulfilled his duties," he would
not say, under repeated questioning at a contentious White House briefing
that the records definitively prove that Mr. Bush reported for duty on those
dates.

"These documents show the days on which he was paid," Mr. McClellan said.
"That's what they show." The president, he said, "does recall showing up and
performing his duties."

Mr. McClellan could not say why some of Mr. Bush's commanding officers did
not recall his turning up on the dates he was paid, but he suggested they
might have forgotten. "We're talking about 30 years ago," Mr. McClellan
said.

The White House released the records under intense election-year pressure
from the Democrats, who have accused a president who sent men and women into
battle in Iraq and Afghanistan of shirking his own military duty during the
Vietnam War. Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of the Democratic National
Committee, has called Mr. Bush "AWOL" from the National Guard. John Kerry, a
decorated Vietnam War veteran who is leading in the Democratic primaries,
has repeatedly called on the president to answer questions about his record.

The White House has appeared to be caught off balance by the aggressiveness
of the Democrats, who have put Mr. Bush in the rare defensive position of
having to respond. Tim Russert of NBC kept the issue alive into this week,
when he asked Mr. Bush in an interview on "Meet the Press" on Sunday if he
would release all his military records. Mr. Bush, who was honorably
discharged, replied almost offhandedly that he would.

"Yeah, if we still have them," Mr. Bush said.

Then the president added: "And I'm just telling you, I did my duty, and it's
politics, you know, to kind of ascribe all kinds of motives to me. But I
have been through it before. I'm used to it."

By Monday night, White House officials said they had obtained the payroll
records, which they said they had not previously known were available, from
the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver.

After the release of the records on Tuesday, Mr. Kerry then said he had no
comment. "It's not my record that's at issue, and I don't have any questions
about it," he told reporters between campaign stops in Tennessee and
Virginia.

The records show that Mr. Bush did not report for service from mid-April to
late October, 1972, a period when he was working as the campaign manager for
Winton Blount, a Republican Senate candidate in Alabama and a friend of his
father.

Mr. Bush never served in Vietnam. His service in the Guard has previously
erupted as a political issue in his two campaigns for governor of Texas and
his 2000 presidential campaign. Then, as now, the period in contention is
May 1972 to May 1973, and where, when and how often Mr. Bush reported for
duty during that time. What is indisputable is that for part of that year,
from May 1972 through November 1972, Mr. Bush lived in Alabama to work on
Blount's campaign. He received permission to train with an Alabama unit of
the Guard while there, and has always said he reported for duty.

But one of Mr. Bush's commanding officers, Lt. Col. William Turnipseed, has
said that while he is not sure, he does not remember Mr. Bush reporting for
duty. The Alabama Guard, meanwhile, has no record of Mr. Bush's service in
the state.

The payroll records released by the White House appear to shed some new, but
not definitive, light on Mr. Bush's Alabama service. They show that he was
paid for two dates in October 1972 and four days in November 1972. But they
do not specifically say that he reported for duty in Alabama.

On Tuesday, Alabama Guard officials said that while they have no records of
Mr. Bush reporting for duty, they would also not necessarily have those
records. Officials at the time, they said, would have sent Mr. Bush's duty
reports on to Texas.

In the winter of 1973, Mr. Bush was back in Texas, where his payroll records
show that he was paid for six days in January, no days in February or March,
two days in April, 14 days in May and five days in June.