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Democratic Group's Ad Revives "AWOL" Allegation Against Bush

"Texans for Truth" group features another Alabama Guardsman who doesn't
recall seeing Bush in 1972.

September 8, 2004

Modified: September 10, 2004

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Summary



An ad unveiled Sept. 8 by the Democratic-leaning group "Texans for
Truth" features a former officer in the Alabama Air National Guard
saying neither he nor his friends saw George W. Bush at their unit in
1972, when Bush was temporarily assigned there.

The TV spot adds little to what was already known. Bush's pay records --
released nearly seven months earlier -- reflect a six-month gap in paid
attendance during a time when he was working on an Alabama Senate campaign.

There were these other developments:

*
A /Boston Globe/ report Sept. 8 concluded that Bush "fell well
short of meeting his military obligation" because of irregular
attendance at Guard drills. The /Globe/ said Bush's superiors
"could have disciplined him or ordered him to active duty in 1972,
1973 or 1974. But they did neither."
*
/The Associated Press/ reported Sept. 8 that newly obtained
records show Bush's Texas unit continued operating the type of
airplane that Bush was trained to fly until 1974, long after
Bush's last flight in April 1972. Bush aides once suggested that a
reason he stopped flying and later skipped a flight physical,
leading to his official grounding, was that his services weren't
needed because the F-102 Delta Dagger planes were being phased out.
*
The CBS program /60 Minutes/ aired an interview Sept. 8 with
former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, who said he used his political
influence to get Bush into the Texas Air National Guard in 1968,
when the Vietnam war was raging. "I would describe it as
preferential treatment," said Barnes, a Democrat who is supporting
Kerry. "We had a lot of young men that left and went to Canada in
the '60s and fled this country. But those that could get in the
Reserves, or those that could get in the National Guard -- chances
are they would not have to go to Vietnam."


Analysis



This ad is hardly more than a video news release. Its sponsors say they
plan to air it mainly on cable-TV outlets in five states at a cost of
$110,000 -- a very light "buy." But it was already being aired on TV
news programs Sept. 8, long before its first scheduled appearance as a
paid ad on Monday Sept. 13.

*Texans for Truth Ad*

*"AWOL"*

/(Graphic: Was George W. Bush AWOL in Alabama?)/

*Bob Mintz* : I heard George W. Bush get up there and say, "I served in
the 187th Air National Guard in Montgomery, Alabama."

I said, "Really, that was my unit? And I don't remember seeing you
there." So I called my friends and said, "Did you know that George Bush
served in our unit?" and everyone said, "No I never saw him there."

/(On screen: Tell us whom you served with Mr. President.)/

*Bob Mintz* : It would be impossible not to be seen in a unit of that size.

/(On screen: George Bush has some explaining to do.)/

Partisan Sponsorship

As might be imagined, the sponsoring organization is partisan. "Texans
for Truth http://texansfortruth.com/index.html" describes itself as an
offshoot of an Austin-based group called "DriveDemocracy.org
http://www.drivedemocracy.org/about/default.htm," which in turn says
it was "initially funded through a generous start-up grant
from MoveOn.org http://www.moveon.org/front/default.htm," a liberal
group dedicated to defeating Bush. Texans for Truth spokesman Glenn W.
Smith is described by the /Austin American-Statesman/ as a "long-time
Democratic operative" and "Moveon.org's man in Austin." He ran Democrat
Tony Sanchez's 2002 campaign for governor in the state.

In a conference call with reporters, Smith said initial funding for the
TV ad is coming from mostly small donors. The group hasn't yet filed any
financial disclosure statements.

"I never saw him"

The title of the ad is "AWOL" and a graphic on screen asks the question
"Was George W. Bush AWOL in Alabama?" Then former Guard pilot Bob Mintz
appears saying "I don't remember seeing you there . . . I called my
friends and said, 'Did you know that George Bush served in our unit?'
and everyone said, 'No I never saw him there.'" Mintz adds that it would
be "impossible" for Bush not to have been seen.

In a telephone conference call with reporters, however, Mintz conceded
that he is not certain whether he himself was present on the dates when
pay records show Bush being paid for drill attendance, and he
volunteered that he can't say that Bush failed to meet his military
obligations:

*Mintz:* I can't say that he didn't do his duties, but I can say for
sure that I was there and I never met George Bush.

In the telephone conference, Mintz recalled that he and other
bachelor pilots were looking forward to meeting a new officer with
"political connections" whom they had heard was going to report to their
Montgomery, Alabama unit, the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group.

"We were anxious to meet the young lieutenant," Mintz said. But the new
arrival never showed, and Mintz says he put it out of his mind until
recently when he heard Bush say he had served in the same unit. Then he
called some friends, and none of them recalled seeing Bush there either.

The Six-month Gap

Mintz actually adds little to what had previously been known about a
six-month gap in Bush's service. /The New York Times/ reported last
February that it had interviewed 16 retired officers, pilots and senior
enlisted men who served at the unit and found none who recalled Bush
attending drills.

Pay records
UploadedFiles/Document%205%20-%20Payroll%20Records.pdf released in
February show Bush wasn't paid for any drills between April 16, 1972 --
the last time he flew with his old unit in Houston -- and October 28 and
29 of that year, just before the conclusion of the Alabama senatorial
campaign in which Bush was working. He was also paid for Nov. 11, 12, 13
& 14, shortly after election day. The pay records don't indicate _where_
Bush was on those dates, but Bush has also produced a dental
examination record UploadedFiles/Bush%20Dental%20Record.pdf showing
he was at the Alabama base on January 6, 1973.

Mintz conceded during the telephone conference that he wasn't sure if he
himself had been at the base on the specific dates Bush was paid in
October and November, and said it was possible that Bush performed
office work at the base without his knowing it. By October Bush could
only have been paid for _non_ -flying service because he had been
officially grounded for failing to take a required flight physical.

Obligation Fulfilled?

Bush has always pointed to his honorable discharge as evidence that he
eventually made up any deficiencies in drill attendance and fulfilled at
least minimum requirements for service. But /The Boston Globe/ reported
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/bush/articles/2004/09/08/bush_fell_short_on_duty_at_guard/default.htm
Sept.
8 that it had conducted a "reexamination of the records" and concluded
that Bush failed to meet the commitments he signed in May 1968, and
again before he transferred out of his unit in mid-1973 to attend
Harvard Business School.

*Boston Globe:* The reexamination of Bush's records by the Globe,
along with interviews with military specialists who have reviewed
regulations from that era, show that Bush's attendance at required
training drills was so irregular that his superiors could have
disciplined him or ordered him to active duty in 1972, 1973, or
1974. But they did neither.

The /Globe/ contacted retired Lieutenant Colonel Albert C. Lloyd
Jr., the former Texas Air National Guard personnel chief who in February
said the records showed Bush _had_ fulfilled his minimum obligations.
This time Lloyd agreed that Bush should have joined a reserve unit in
the Boston area when he moved to Cambridge in September 1973.

*Lloyd:* (Bush) took a chance that he could be called up for active
duty. But the war was winding down, and he probably knew that the
Air Force was not enforcing the penalty. . . . There were hundreds
of guys like him who did the same thing.

Actually, the Vietnam war was officially over by the time Bush went to
Harvard. The US and North Vietnam signed a cease-fire agreement in
January of 1973, and the last US combat troops came home in March
(leaving only advisers and Marines protecting US installations). The
last person drafted into the Army entered service June 30, 1973.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan disputed
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/02/20040210-3.html the
/Globe / conclusion:

*McClellan:* If the President had not fulfilled his commitment he
would not have been honorably discharged. He was honorably
discharged in October of '73. The President is proud of his service
in the National Guard. . . . The President met his commitments in
Texas. He met his commitments in Alabama. He met his commitments
when he returned to Texas in 1973.

*Q:* Did he meet his commitments in Boston?

*McClellan:* As I said, Caren, if he had not fulfilled his
commitments, he would not have been honorably discharged.

Later in the day, the White House said Bush had been assigned to an Air
Force Obligated Ready Reserve unit in Denver, Colorado, -- as reflected
by previously released documents -- absolving him of any requirement
to report for duty in Massachusetts. "These documents show the President
fulfilled his obligations," said White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan,
as quoted by Reuters.

Still Flying in 1974

Separately, /The Associated Press/ said it had obtained new records
showing that Bush's Houston unit continued to operate the F-102 Delta
Dagger aircraft long after Bush stopped flying in April 1972.

The AP said the Pentagon released the records under pressure from a
Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, after previously saying it could not
find them.

The AP said the two dozen new pages of records show that Bush's Texas
unit flew the F-102A until 1974, and also used the jets as part of an
air defense drill during 1972, despite a suggestion by Bush's 2000
campaign that he had skipped his medical exam in part because the F-102A
was nearly obsolete.

The AP said the records also show that Bush ranked No. 22 in a class of
53 pilots when he finished his flight training at Moody Air Force Base
in Georgia in 1969. (That seemed to conflict with what Bush?s flight
instructor, retired Col. Maurice H. Udell, was quoted by /The Boston
Globe/ as saying in 2000, when he said he would rank Bush "in the top 5
percent of pilots I knew.?)

The AP said the records reflect Bush logging a total of 326.4 hours as a
pilot and an additional 9.9 hours as a co-pilot. Of those, 278 hours
were in the F-102A, including about 77 hours in the two-seat trainer
version of the aircraft, the TF-102A.

How He Got In

Bush got into the Texas Air National Guard in 1968 when more than 16,000
Americans were dying in the Vietnam war, the deadliest year by far for
US troops. Five years ago former Texas Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes
issued a statement through his lawyer saying he had helped Bush get into
the Guard at the request of a Bush family friend, a Houston oilman named
Sidney Adger who has since died. In 1968 Bush's father was a Republican
congressman and Barnes was and remains a Democrat. Barnes said in his
1999 statement that neither then-Congressman Bush nor any other member
of the Bush family had contacted him directly.

Now Barnes is talking more openly than in the past, saying he got Bush
into the Guard while helping lots of "wealthy supporters" and "family
names of importance" get in, thereby avoiding conscription into combat.

Barnes granted his first public interview with CBS for its program /60
Minutes, / which aired it Sept. 8.

*Ben Barnes:* *I would describe it as preferential treatment.* There
were hundreds of names on the list of people wanting to get into the
Air National Guard or the Army National Guard . . . I think that
would have been a preference to anybody that didn't want to go to
Vietnam or didn't want to leave. We had a lot of young men that left
and went to Canada in the '60s and fled this country. But those that
could get in the Reserves, or those that could get in the National
Guard - chances are they would not have to go to Vietnam.

Barnes is a partisan source: he is listed on Kerry's website
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0319b.html as
among those who have raised $100,000 or more for the campaign, acquiring
the honorary title of campaign "Vice Chair."

Earlier, Barnes spoke of his help for Bush at a rally staged by a
pro-Kerry group in Austin, Texas on May 27th, and a video
http://www.austin4kerry.org/Barnes/index.htm of his remarks was
posted on a pro-Kerry website June 25th.

*Ben Barnes:* I *got a young man named George W. Bush in the
National Guard* when I was Lieutenant Governor of Texas, and I?m not
necessarily proud of that, but I did it. *And I got a lot of other
people in the National Guard because I thought that was what people
should do when you?re in office: you helped a lot of rich people*.
And I walked through the Vietnam Memorial the other day and I looked
at the names of the people that died in Vietnam , and I became more
ashamed of myself than I?ve ever been. Because it was the worst
thing I did, was help a lot of wealthy supporters and a lot of
people who had family names of importance get in the National Guard.
And I?m very sorry of that, and I?m very ashamed. And I apologize to
you as the voters of Texas.

(Note: Actually, what Barnes said could not have been strictly accurate.
He was Speaker of the Texas House in 1968 when Bush entered Guard
service, and wasn't sworn in as the state's Lieutenant Governor
http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ref/abouttx/ltgov.html until 1969.
However, he said in his /60 Minutes/ interview that he had helped get
young men into the Guard both as Speaker and as Lieutenant Governor.)

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said the Barnes video
statement was "discredited", according to /The Associated Press/ :

*McClellan:* It is not surprising coming from a longtime partisan
Democrat. The allegation was discredited by the commanding officer.
This was fully covered and addressed five years ago. It is nothing new.

McClellan may have been referring to a comment made in 1999 when Buck
Staudt, the former commander of the Texas Air National Guard, denied
helping Bush jump ahead of others on the waiting list to get in. "Nobody
did anything for him," Staudt said in an interview, as quoted by the
/Los Angeles Times/ . "There was no goddamn influence on his behalf.
Neither his daddy nor anybody else got him into the Guard."


Sources


Mark Memmott, "'Texans for Truth' ad challenges Bush on Guard service
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-09-07-texas-ad_x.htm,"
_USA
TODAY_ 8 Feb 2004.

David Barstow, "Seeking Memories of Bush At an Alabama Air Base," _The
New York Times_ , 13 February 2004: A5.

Walter V. Robinson and The Globe Spotlight Team, " Bush fell short on
duty at Guard
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/bush/articles/2004/09/08/bush_fell_short_on_duty_at_guard/default.htm
; Records show pledges unmet," _The Boston Globe_ 8 Sep 2004: A1.

"Press Briefing by Scott McClellan," White House news release
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/02/20040210-3.html, 8 Feb
2004.

Greg Frost, "New Questions Raised on Bush Military Record," Reuters, 8
Sep 2004.

"New Questions On Bush Guard Duty
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/08/60II/main641984.shtml," CBS
News 60 Minutes 8 Feb 2004.

"New Campaign Kicks Off With TV Ad Spotlighting Bush Absence From
Alabama National Guard" News Release, Texans for Truth, 8 Sep 2004.

September 8, 2004, Wednesday, BC cycle

Matt Kelly, "Lawsuit prompts release of new records
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20040908_537.html showing Bush
grades as Guard pilot," The Associated Press 8 Sep 2004.

"Parties plan to be persuasive," _Austin American-Statesman_ 13 Dec
2003: B2.

Ben Barnes, "on getting Bush into the National Guard," video
http://www.austin4kerry.org/Barnes/index.htm, Austin4Kerry.org,
taped 25 May 2004.

"The Kerry Campaign Release Updated Top Fundraisers : JohnKerry.com is
tops with $20 million raised in 2004," John Kerry for President, news
release
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0319b.html 19
March 2004.

Bobby Ross Jr., "Ex-Lawmaker Regrets Helping Bush In Guard," _The
Associated Press_, 29 August 2004.

Richard A. Serrano, "Bush Received Quick Air Guard Commission," Los
Angeles Times, 4 July 1999: A1.


Related Articles


New Evidence Supports Bush Military Service (Mostly)
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Bush A Military "Deserter?" Calm Down, Michael
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Clark backer Michael Moore calls President Bush a "deserter" for missing
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Update: Documents May Be Forgeries miscreports.aspx@DocID=256



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