W. was temporarily AWOL back then, because he wanted to work on a political campaign. It's no slur on the National Guard, a phenomenal organization, who have made tremendous sacrifices to protect our country! W. was a well-connected young man who eventually pulled it back together and was honorably discharged, but he did disobey orders and he did go AWOL from the Guard for a time. Part of running for office is facing up to the consequences of your actions--let W. stand up for himself and do that (if he can ever get past Karl Rove long enough to speak for himself).
You might wish to take a look at this complete thread, a Free Republic Thread on Bush(43) Service Record which will answer not only the charges that he got into the Texas Air National Guard by pulling strings with an extremely low test score, and that he was "AWOL" from duty. The information on the thread even has photocopies of the Bush(43) service records, dates, times etc so that you can form your OWN opinion by reading the liberal 'charges' and dates, and then matching them up with his government service record. Why not trust you OWN eyes rather than having to find a 'story' which might support Bush(43)? I can not see where he was 'AWOL' from the photostats of his records, can you?
Best of luck,
dvwjr