Debunking The Bush AWOL Story - From The Horse's Mouth

Brig. Gen. Turnipseed | February 6, 2004 | Hon

[bellesouth]

Uh oh, they found a third person who doesn't remember seeing Bush in Alabama! "Attendance records of the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron do not show that Bush ever was there. "I never saw the man, I never met the man," Kenneth K. Lott, the squadron's personnel officer at the time, told Newsweek. Lonnie Slauson, who was the squadron commander in 1972, told Newsweek, that "the name Bush wouldn't have meant a thing to me back then," but he had no memory of Bush either. (The President told Russert that his honorable discharge in 1973 is proof enough that he did his duty, including in Alabama.)"Newsweek Press Release

[Hon]

Why would any of these people have remembered Bush? They had people coming through all the time--especially now with Vietnam winding down. (I don't me this personally) but can you remember everyone you ever met thirty five years ago maybe twice--along with dozens of other people?

It is preposterous to even bring the subject up in these terms. But that is how they have had to torture things to advance their "story."

As you probably know, a number of people have looked into this--including George Magazine--when the story first hit. George Magazine said that going by the records Bush probably did more days service than he was required to.

http://web.archive.org/web/20001202233300/http://www2.georgemag.com/bush.html

[mplsconservative]

Head on back over to DU, bellesouth.

[tornadochaser]

Great job!

Regarding people that don't remember seeing Bush... I don't remember seeing Kerry when I was in Vietnam. I guess he wasn't there, right? :-)

I just finished watching the White House press conference where they gave the Bush's pay records to the pack of wolves referred to as the White House press corps. Unfortunately, Scotty, the Bush press spokesman, seemed to not have an answer for the "Not Observed" reports. It sounds like he really needed to do his homework. I would expect the press to be ignorant of it (they're ignorant of everything else), but Bush's spokesman? Sigh.

It is interesting that nobody in the media (including Fox) is talking about Kerry's postwar treachery. I suspect that the Bush administration is saving that for closer to the campaign.

For those who are imagining buying ads, remember that the stupid "Campaign Finance Reform" law, upheld by the brain-dead O'Connor, makes that illegal at the time that it counts! Sad to say, Bush signed the damned thing expecting it to be overturned.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Bump.

We've already discussed the "Not Observed" ---

It's the absolutely correct data for ANY officer not directly observed by his CO: The temporary duty station NEVER issues fitness reports (Air Force Officer Efficiency report or OER); those can ONLY be done by the actual commanding officer.

A "Not Observed" means that the officer in question was performing his duty and had no problems for that period (it NOT NEGATIVE information, but was not seen on a day-to-day basis by the CO.

Now, if you want to get promoted, you make sure your record is clean of "Not Observed" because they don't "puff up" your image and promote your impression.

But they are deliberately neutral comments.

[YaYa123]

Finally, General Turnipseed's comments, as reported to us by Hon, get some attention. Rush mentioned this today, saying it was in a little AP article way on the back pages.

Thank you Hon.

And kudos today to ColinPowell. At a congressional hearing, a congress critter (didnt' catch his name), asked Powell a question, and in the premise of it, mentioned Bush being AWOL. Powell interrupted and said, "I don't accept your premise, congressman, and frankly you don't know what you're talking about. The congressman said, "what, I don't understand, I only said someone said he was awol". Powell said, "don't go there".

Double kudos to Powell! He wouldn't let the bastard play that game of getting damaging lies out by way of what someone else said. And Powell looked really angry.

[Eaker]

Did y'all see this???

[HenryLeeII]

Col. Turnipseed ping - yer gonna like this! Its almost as good as getting Champ Bailey for a fourth-rounder!

[thackney]

Thanks Eaker, Hopefully enough of this will come to light and save Howard "Crazy Train" Dean. Then we can dream of ALL 50 state sweep...

[Neets]

Read this thread, from the beginning.

[Hon]

Brig. Gen. ‘recall’ in 2004
Brigadier Gen. Turnipseed, 75 and retired in Montgomery, Ala., says he's sorry he ever said he would have "had some recall" of Bush had he attended a meeting of the Alabama Air Guard unit.

"I don't remember whether he came or not. Our unit had about 900- 1,000 men and he could have attended many meetings without me ever knowing it," Turnipseed said this week.

As for Bush being AWOL, Turnipseed said, "No way. He was never assigned to our unit so he couldn't be AWOL. Like so many Guard and Reserve soldiers during the Vietnam War, they moved around and temporarily attended meetings with other units but Bush never left his original unit in Texas.”

Turnipseed has said all along there would be no mention of the president in the Alabama unit since Bush was paid out of Texas.

When asked about Bush’s pay record, Turnipseed said the paymaster in Alabama would note Bush attended a meeting and send the information onto Texas on what he described as an "IBM 105" card where it would be recorded and sent onto payroll in Colorado.

Bush was accused by Democrats of skipping meetings because there was no written record of him attending those meetings in October and November in Alabama.

On Tuesday, the White House released payroll records that showed the president received credit for attending meetings in October and November 1972.

The records don't indicate where he attended those meetings but he was living in Alabama at the time.

As for Turnipseed, he says the crux is that it is really difficult to remember what happened more than 30 years ago.

Alabama commander regrets Bush comments
MSNBC.com ^ | 02-11-04 | Jim Cummins

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4242877/

[DallasMike]

Another truth bump.

[DallasMike]

This story has been around since 1999 and basically debunked in toto....

Actually it came up during the 1994 governors' election here in Texas. Ma Richards and the mainstream press were hot on the "story." One would think that after 10 years the media might get the hint that this is a non-story.