Posted on 09/08/2004 12:21:23 PM PDT by ambrose
New Questions Raised on Bush Military Record
Wed Sep 8, 2004 02:57 PM ET
By Greg Frost
BOSTON (Reuters) - President Bush fell short of meeting his military obligations during the Vietnam War and was not disciplined despite irregular attendance at required training drills, The Boston Globe said on Wednesday.
In a probe of the president's service in the Texas Air National Guard, the newspaper said Bush appeared to have broken his contract with the U.S. government by not joining an Air Force Reserve unit when he moved to Massachusetts from Texas in mid-1973.
The military records of Bush and of his Democratic opponent John Kerry, who was decorated for service in Vietnam, have featured prominently in the campaign for the presidential election on Nov. 2.
Republicans have made Bush's leadership of what he calls a global war on terrorism central to his campaign.
In February, the White House released hundreds of pages of Bush's military records that showed he was absent for long periods of his final two years of National Guard duty but said nonetheless he met service requirements.
However, the Globe focused on documents Bush signed in 1968 and 1973 in which he pledged to meet training commitments or face a punitive call-up to active duty.
The Globe said in July 1973, before Bush left Houston to attend Harvard Business School, he signed a document saying: "It is my responsibility to locate and be assigned to another Reserve forces unit or mobilization augmentation position. If I fail to do so, I am subject to involuntary order to active duty for up to 24 months... "
Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett told the Washington Post in 1999 that the future president had served at a Boston-area Air Force Reserve unit after leaving Houston. But Bush never joined a Boston-area unit, the Globe said.
"I must have misspoke," Bartlett, now White House communications director, was quoted as telling the Globe in a recent interview.
"HONORABLE DISCHARGE"
White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan, responding to the Globe report on Wednesday, said, "The president was honored to serve his country. He met his obligations, and was honorably discharged."
The Globe also looked at a 1968 pledge by Bush in which he committed to "satisfactory participation" in Guard training.
But the newspaper said he performed no service over a six-month period in 1972 and nearly a three-month stretch in 1973 -- erratic attendance that could have prompted his superiors to discipline him or order him to active duty in 1972, 1973 or 1974.
Instead, Bush's unit certified in late 1973 that his service had been "satisfactory," the Globe said.
The National Guard and reserves, rarely called up during the Vietnam War, came to be regarded as "draft havens for relatively affluent young white men," the Air National Guard says in a history on its Internet site.
Former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, a Democrat, is scheduled to appear on CBS' "60 Minutes" on Wednesday night to discuss how he helped Bush get into the Guard in 1968, the network said.
In a videotaped speech recently posted on the Internet, Barnes told an Austin, Texas political rally: "I got a young man named George W. Bush into the National Guard when I was lieutenant governor of Texas and I'm not necessarily proud of that ... I thought that's what people should do when you're in office: You help rich people."
The Pentagon on Tuesday released 17 pages of what it called newly found records that showed Bush flew 336 hours in a fighter jet, most recently in April 1972, and ranked 22nd out of 53 pilots when he finished flight training at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia in 1969.
The pages did not resolve the dispute over whether Bush completed the service as required.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe said the details about Bush's service undermined his credibility. "These new documents show that the president did not serve honorably," McAuliffe said, accusing Bush of either lying about his record or suffering "some kind of severe memory loss."
A pro-Kerry group, Texans for Truth, plans to run television commercials this week questioning Bush's Guard attendance. A group backing Bush, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, has said in its own commercials that Kerry lied about his Vietnam war record.
Kerry has to be pretty desperate to start whipping this dead horse once again.
Bush has not made his NG record an issue. Kerry, on the other hand, has made his Swiftboat record an issue.
S'pose AP will do a story on Reuters doing a story on the Globe's hitpiece?
Then CNN will do a story on AP doing a story on....
Dan
Reuters is gonna need the world's finest snow tires to get any traction with this story.
Desperate people take desperate measures....
I am scared to see how far the desperate dems will go.
Read this, it will answer all the Boston Globe allegations:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1209878/posts
Boston Globe.. the Grey Lady's flunky. As a paper owned by the NY Times, it can print the dirt that even the NY Times has second thoughts about.
Boy, these media slimebags are really polishing whatever passes for Kerry's knob.
Just when was it that Bush transfered from Texas to Massachusetts?
I thought Reuters got its info and sold it to the newspapers. Here they seem to be quoting a newspaper?????
When will the MSM ask Kerry to release ALL is records, sign Form-180! Answer: "What is a cold day in hell"
Next headline: "Reuters Discovers the Word 'Terrorist' in the Dictionary"
I never thought I would be very good a running a political campaign. Thought I was probably too dumb. But after seeing what the Kerry campaign does maybe there would be hope for me afterall.
The real story is that Halliburton employees manufactured the planes Bush flew and Saudi agents provided the fuel.
People are getting very tired of hearing about Bush's National Guard story. I just spoke with a Democrat this morning who was sick of hearing about this. Bush got an honorable discharge. End of story.
Ah, geez, here it comes for what, the fourth time this year?
"Texans for Truth"? How about "Cumquats for Calumny"? Hah! I like it. I like it.
Funny how the clintonistas take over Kerry and then this turns up. They are truly out of gas.
Plus the Dems seem to forget they put a Draft Dodger in the White House TWICE...and still laud him. Honestly, if it weren't for double standards, Dems would have no standards at all!
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