Bush 'Desertion' Charge Debunked

NewsMax ^ | 1/24/04 | Limbacher

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Did President Bush "desert" the military, as radical filmmaker Michael Moore insists he did?

Presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark suggested during New Hampshire's presidential debate Thursday night that the facts of whether Bush ran out on his National Guard unit in 1972 and 1973 are in dispute.

But in the months before the 2000 presidential election, the New York Times pretty much demolished this Democratic Party urban legend, a myth that first surfaced in its sister paper, the Boston Globe.

"For a full year, there is no record that Bush showed up for the periodic drills required of part-time guardsmen," the Globe insisted in May 2000, in a report Mr. Moore currently cites on his web site to rebut ABC newsman Peter Jennings' debate challenge to Clark that the story is "unsupported by the facts."

"I don't know whether [Moore's desertion charge] is supported by the facts or not," Clark replied "I've never looked at it."

The Times did, however, look at it, and found that Bush had indeed served during the part of the time the Globe had him AWOL - and later made up whatever time he missed after requesting permission for the postponement.

In July 2000 the Times noted that Bush's chief accuser in the Globe report, retired Gen. William Turnipseed, had begun to back way from his story that Bush never appeared for service during the time in question.

"In a recent interview," said the Times, "[Turnipseed] took a tiny step back, saying, 'I don't think he did, but I wouldn't stake my life on it." In fact, military records obtained by the Times showed that Turnipseed was wrong and that the Globe had flubbed the story.

"A review by The Times showed that after a seven-month gap, he appeared for duty in late November 1972 at least through July 1973," the paper noted on Nov. 3, 2000.

The Times explained:

"On Sept. 5, 1972, Mr. Bush asked his Texas Air National Guard superiors for assignment to the 187th Tactical Recon Group in Montgomery [Alabama] 'for the months of September, October and November,'" so Bush could manage the Senate campaign of Republican Winton Blount.

"Capt. Kenneth K. Lott, chief of the personnel branch of the 187th Tactical Recon Group, told the Texas commanders that training in September had already occurred but that more training was scheduled for Oct. 7 and 8 and Nov. 4 and 5."

After the Bush AWOL story had percolated for months, Col. Turnipseed finally remembered another glitch in his story: the fact that National Guard regulations allowed Guard members to miss duty as long as it was made up within the same quarter.

And, in fact - according to the Times - that's what Bush did.

"A document in Mr. Bush's military records," the paper said, "showed credit for four days of duty ending Nov. 29 and for eight days ending Dec. 14, 1972, and, after he moved back to Houston, on dates in January, April and May."

The paper found corroboration for the document, noting, "The May dates correlated with orders sent to Mr. Bush at his Houston apartment on April 23, 1973, in which Sgt. Billy B. Lamar told Mr. Bush to report for active duty on May 1-3 and May 8-10."

Yet another document obtained by the Times blew the Bush AWOL story out of the water.

It showed that Mr. Bush served at various times from May 29, 1973, through July 30, 1973 - "a period of time questioned by The Globe," the Times sheepishly admitted.

[LoudRepublicangirl]

If a fart could take human form it would look like Michael Moore.

[Twinkie]

We received a mailing from Bob Barr today. He
says that Hillary is gearing up to run this time.
It sounded like there was some speculation about
them using Wesley Clark to help them accomplish
this. Barr said this country could not survive
another Clinton presidency. Although he didn't
specifically say it, I wonder if it will end up
being some cutesy thing like a Clinton/Clark ticket.

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Running as VP might eliminate the garbage which would hold her back in 08, otherwise I don't understand the insight.

[Arpege92]

read later

[Democratshavenobrains]

The DUers will never accept this. Otherwise, they would have to admit that they were snookered by some idiot from the Boston Globe for 4 years.

[Common Tator]

everyone is missing the big picture. The fact that people are writting about it, is bad for Bush

No it is not.

The only important think in politics is how what the office holder or candidate does effects the voter.

When Clinton is accused of screwing an intern or Bush is accused of skiping National Guard meetings, it has no bearing on the outcome of electionis or approval ratings.

If Bush has an economic plan and the Democrats don't it doesn't even matter if Bush's plan doesn't work. If after 911 it looks like Bush is trying to protect voters and Democrats say I don't need protection, Bush wins....even if we get hit here in the USA again.

These are the biggest group of ignorant Democratic candidates in my memory.

The swing voters that decide every election, vote on how the candidates actions and proposals effect them. If trashing candidates worked, both Roosevelt and Truman would have been defeated. Jimmy Carter served in the navy as a naval officer. Ronald Reagan made movies during World War II. What elected Reagan was his plan to fix the economy when Carter had no plan. The democrats trashed reagan for wanting to use hte military when he made movies during WWII. It did not help Carter a single vote.

What elected Clinton over war hero Bush 41, was "It's the economy stupid!" Hero stuff won't make the house payment fixing the economy will.

What wins elections are issues that directly effect the lives of the swing voters.

Attacking Bush unfairly about military service only motivates his base. The center does not care.

Some ob Bush's base is angry with some of the more liberal things Bush has done. Everytime a far left Demorat unfairly attacks bush, the liberal just ups the turn out of the Republican base.

Any one who has studied politics knows that what Clark and his dumb buddy have done is counter productive to their cause.

[Morgan's Raider]

The DUmbasses wil never accept it anyway. They're not about to let facts get in the way of their accusations and world view.

[gg188]

This is just a little off the subject, but.....Put General Clark beside General Powell. I have never been a big fan of Colin's, but the contrast is stark: a weasel and loose cannon on the one hand, and a mature, respected, dignified man on the other.

[xzins]

I've read that, and this information at the end of this article about make-up days adds even more information.

The bottom line.

President Bush has an honorable discharge that says he fulfilled his commitment.

Besides that, any draftee at that time had to serve only 2 years to complete a full tour in the active duty military.

President Bush served TWO FULL YEARS of active duty by virtue of his training as a pilot. He served active as much as anyone else, except for those who signed up for more. Afterwards, he had more weekend drills to attend.

I was active duty from 1970-1974, as a young enlistee, so I remember the guard and reserve I went to basic with. I also remember many of the active duty did NOT go to Vietnam. I was one of them. I went to D.C., and then I was sent to Germany.

Vietnam was WINDING DOWN in that period. To ascribe anything to the President's record except Honorable completion is unprincipled and driven by political animus.

[Mr. Thorne]

Bump.

[Destro]

You dared say Bush has clay feet. So you must be a Democrat convert or something. Bush's military record is nothing impressive, but for Bushbots, just being in the air national guard means Bush is a hero akin to Kerry's combat heroics.

[dsc]

"The economy is good, jobs will probably follow within the next few months. There is no reason for the public to want to fire George Bush. Therefore, unless something major happens to change the situation, he will win handily."

There's always the possibility that the slimestream media will start claiming that the economy is tanking, which will take in some people.

Then, too, Bush has offended some people right down to their socks by appointing flaming pickle-smoochers to high office and with his amnesty proposal for illegal aliens.

Figure in the inevitable large-scale fraud by demoncrats, and I look for a "close" race.

[Old Student]

"I was active duty from 1970-1974, as a young enlistee, so I remember the guard and reserve I went to basic with. I also remember many of the active duty did NOT go to Vietnam. I was one of them. I went to D.C., and then I was sent to Germany."

I enlisted in the USAF late in 1973, and my Basic Military Training Squadron had only one flight of active-duty trainees, mine. The other two were both guard/reserve folks. There would have been more, but they were trying to shut us down so they could tear down the WWII barracks, and build one of the 1000-man dorm they were putting up all over the place at Lackland, then.

I also volunteered for anyplace in SE Asia, as I left basic for tech training, and kept volunteering for as long as we had people over there. I went to New Mexico, instead, and trained folks coming back from Thailand on the F-111D, until I wrecked my knees and retrained. Then I went to Florida.

The paperwork got messed up quite a bit back then, but no-one got out with an Honorable who hadn't earned it.

One of our guys got held in service while they processed his Meritorious Service Medal for saving a guy's life and an airplane (at the same time) before getting his bad-conduct discharge. It was a wild time, but the older guys mostly had their heads on fairly straight.

[xzins]

I agree OS.

If you didn't deserve an Honorable Discharge back then, they weren't real shy about downgrading them.

This was pre-computer days, too. I remember going down to division HQ of 1st AD in about 1973 to check on my file. I went inside this huge bay that had about a 100 clerks in it. Each of them had their batch of files they had to watch. I imagine some were better than others. We had the entire range then....boyscouts to drug addicts....and they had your file.

It was all pencil, too, with very little ink. Letters were on typewriters, orders were mimeographed, etc.

My point is that glitches in files were common and creating a file was a time-consuming process. If a guy was regularly going here and then back there and then over yonder, well, that would be hard to keep track of. Especially if the clerk was national guard and they only did their thing on weekends.

In any case, President Bush had TWO YEARS active duty + his remaining guard time. He paid his dues.

[dsc]

"These are the biggest group of ignorant Democratic candidates in my memory."

Well, the exodus of good men from the demoncrat party has been going on for well over ten years now. There are only one or two left, now, and the other demoncrats hate them.

However, it might be good to remember that Clinocchio was not picked as the demoncrat candidate because they thought he would win. He was supposed to be a sacrificial lamb, picked to lose against GHWB and spare a "real" candidate a loss.

In the event, the slimestream media, demoncrat election fraud, GHW'B's promise-breaking, and Chicom money put him into office.

What could happen this time?

[pickemuphere]

And according to the Globe article, it was during the ''cushy'' assignment that he then asked for the early release (to run for Congress).

Perhaps, but I can guarantee that Kerry's assignment was far less "cushier" than Bush's nominal stint in the Texas Air National Guard. We should be honest with ourselves here; Kerry's military record outshines Bush's, and that may or may not be a liability in the upcoming race.

[muawiyah]

Actually, it's good that the WWII vets are a smaller part of the population and the Viet Nam vets are a larger part of the population (compared to them).

You will notice that every attempt to denounce our troops in the field has been trounced thoroughly. That wasn't the case during the Nam, and the WWII vets are responsible for that sad state of affairs.

There's nothing like getting betrayed to focus your attention on the important stuff.

[Marie Antoinette]

Saved for election time; it will need to be debunked AGAIN.

Me too. I need this stuff for college papers I need to write.

[Ann Archy]

Straight men don't whine like girly men do.

[Ann Archy]

Even Certifiable Clark knows Michael Moore is a Bush-hater....that's why he PRAISED him as a leader! A leader....Michael Moore called a leader!! Yes, the world IS ending.