Bush credited for Guard drills (Kapow!)

The Boston Globe ^ | 2/10/04 | Walter V. Robinson

[The G Man]

President Bush received credit for attending Air National Guard drills in the fall of 1972 and spring of 1973 -- a period when his commanders have said he did not appear for duty at bases in Montgomery, Ala., and Houston -- according to two new documents obtained by the Globe.

[Darlin']

Thanks...... He looks so FINE. :)

[dvwjr]

I made a mistake in the first image of the 'torn' ARF image. I used the abuse button to hope that the moderators can replace the image file with this correct one: http://users.cis.net/coldfeet/doc99.gif

I really made a stupid editing error which makes my post meaningless without the correction. I wanted the moderators to edit my #257 post to correct the first duplicate 'doc16.gif' that is visible.

Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaarrrrrrrggggggg!!!!

dvwjr

[WVNan]

Good letter, but don't hold your breath waiting for them to print it.

[dvwjr]

Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrgggghhhhh!!!!

This is the corrected version!
dvwjr

Originally posted by OldFriend:

"Sorry, Ann Compton of WABC radio news at the top of the ten o'clock hour said it's not good enough because it doesn't show WHERE he served."

Before today they were saying that it wasn't clear that some of the documents were even George Bush's! Now that they have clean copies of the documents previously in question, now they want pay stub documents to "really" confirm Bush's National Guard related whereabouts in 1972-1973. What will they want as 'proof' next?

This was the photocopy image released by a FOIA request in 2000 of George W. Bush's 1972-1973 ARF Statement of Points Earned which led to much anti-Bush speculation that it was deliberately torn to hide the REAL name or actual dates:

This is the newly released "untorn" pristine version of the same document shown above. This is the one to which the Boston Globe story of 2/10/2004 refers. Notice how it matches up just fine:

The 'torn' version of the above ARF Statement of Points Earned document has inspired anti-Bush websites to contortions in analysis such as these following paragraphs from the website TomPaine.common sense - More Questions than Answers: Bush's Military Record under Scrutiny.

First, George matched dates of service on the document against May 1973 "special orders" calling Bush to appear for service. The three dates on the special orders not only correspond to dates on the torn attendance document, but appear in the right chronological order: we know that May was the last month in Bush's attendance reporting period, and the May special order dates appear at the end of the list of dates on the document, where they would be expected.

Second, George deduced that the fourth date on the document must have been January 10th. The tear on the document runs through the column where the month abbreviations should be. In this fourth row, before the number 10, is what appears to be an "N." This -- the only visible clue concerning the month that the service took place -- suggests that the month abbreviation for this date must be Jan or Jun. But, again, we know that Bush's service records are tracked using a calendar year that begins and ends in May. It is clear from the number sequence that, at the very least, two months have passed before the fourth date of service. Therefore, the fourth line could not be June; it must be January 10 -- if you assume the document is Bush's record.

By the same logic, the previous dates on the record could be January 6, December 14, and the first date on the record could be November 29th, a date that the Bush campaign has said (and the New York Times has confirmed) is one that he served. This is also consistent with the idea that he served no time before Election Day, while he was busy working on the Alabama campaign of W. Blount, a candidate for the U.S. Senate.

Why go through such speculation when you could just order a new photocopy in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Nooooooo. That would be too hard.

---

This was the photocopy image released by a FOIA request in 2000 of George W. Bush's 1973-1974 ARF Statement of Points Earned:

This is the newly released "pristine" version of the same document shown above.

New photocopy document images from Calpundit.com; images now hosted on my website.

Source: Calpundit.com - February 09,2004: Documentary Evidence.

dvwjr

[Darlin']

"Brig Gen Turnipseed? Are you lurking here? Please contact Brit Hume at Fox News and take your story national."

That is ia wonderfuil idea, Petronski. Brig General Turnipseed has refuted this attempt at character assassination but his clarifcation has been ignored by the mainstream press. Clearly, he is being used by some very partisan people who care not one whit for him or the Guard.

[Hon]

I think you ought to post this as a separate thread.

[antiRepublicrat]

Because they were updating to a different type of plane, Bush was about to be discharged and it's not worth the money to train a pilot on a differnet type of plane if he's not going to be there to do more than train in it.

Sounds like a lot of conjecture. He hadn't yet stated his intent to leave the ANG, and the planes were flown for quite a while after he lost his flight status. The main question does go to intent for Bush: why did he purposely miss his flight physical? Why did he not try to reschedule? Why did he give the excuse that he was not close enough for his family physician to perform the physical?

[MainFrame65]

I get published several times a year, but this might be too long - although I would hate to leave any of it out. They once published a long letter from me word for word, when I was responding to a distinctly antisemitic editorial they were too ignorant to recognize. This is my first since to the new editorial page editor, and it has been a couple of months, so at least I am eligible....

[Sol_Invictus]

The press was wrong about Bush. As usual!

[cake_crumb]

Yes, he had.

[olliemb]

Why don;t you find someone whom you barely knew remember you 30+ years later. Yeah, give them a call or put out a memo --"it would be nice to have others who were present comeforward" --crying out loud, are you for real or just doing Terry's dirty job.

[GunnyB]

This won't be good enough for John F'n Kerry.....he's a war hero.

I find that Kerry's embracing his "War Hero" status laughable at best. He is, and will always be, to those of us who served to the bitter end (I was at the Evac of Saigon in '75), Hanoi John. He is sleaze, corrupt, an opportunist and a cad. Now that the gloves seem to be coming off and someone at the Whitehouse finally woke up, I want to see this scum crushed. BIG TIME!

[Ragirl]

GREAT STUFF!
Thanks!

[Ragirl]

I find that Kerry's embracing his "War Hero" status laughable at best. He is, and will always be, to those of us who served to the bitter end (I was at the Evac of Saigon in '75), Hanoi John. He is sleaze, corrupt, an opportunist and a cad. Now that the gloves seem to be coming off and someone at the Whitehouse finally woke up, I want to see this scum crushed. BIG TIME!

Thanks for your service to our country. I cannot begin to understand the anger you and other vets must feel when listening to John F'ing Kerry spew his vile. I sure hope they are waking up at the White House and come out with some good body slams for Ketchup Boy. He is evil and corrupt for sure.

[Trajan88]

I'm still waiting for Terry Mc to return the ill-gotten gains both he and his PAL Gary Winnick (a Klinton enabler) plundered from Global Crossing.

I lost $3,000 on my stock while Terry turned $100,000 into something like $16,000,000.

Terry's excuse... it is capitalism. No it is not you fool, it is fraud and theft of the highest order. A U.S. Attorney should put your actions in front of a grand jury. There's no doubt in my mind the end result of a trial would leave you wearing nickle-plated hand cuffs, doing a perp walk to the jail house.

Trajan88

[GunnyB]

I cannot begin to understand the anger you and other vets must feel when listening to John F'ing Kerry spew his vile.

Indeed. I was called a baby killer, spat upon, and generally eschewed by my own people. When I hear Kerry bash our President about Guard Service, or tout his own service knowing how he has maligned and obstructed the military at every turn since returning from RVN, I see BRIGHT red. To see his campaign using Vets as backdrops to this charade is just the height of hypocrisy.

[lepton]

and statements by Bush's Guard superiors,

In the earliest quotes, they didn't say that they remembered him not showing, but that they didn't remember him showing. Given that it was nearly three decades before, GWB wasn't particualrly important, and he wasn't even flying, not remembering him is hardly remarkable.

[hole_n_one]

Matthews said on tonight's show about his feelings regarding the release of the documents today by the White House......

I'm satisfied, (then mutters ever so softly, yet audibly), sort of.

[Ragirl]

Indeed. I was called a baby killer, spat upon, and generally eschewed by my own people. When I hear Kerry bash our President about Guard Service, or tout his own service knowing how he has maligned and obstructed the military at every turn since returning from RVN, I see BRIGHT red. To see his campaign using Vets as backdrops to this charade is just the height of hypocrisy.

I'm sorry that you had to go through all of that horrible stuff. Yes, John Fing Kerry is a hypocrite. It makes me angry to hear what he has to say when I think about what he has done/said in the past. I was a child during the vietnam war and lived next to a cemetery. I remember climbing up the fence to watch the military funerals and understanding another person paid the ultimate price, but also remember the "baby killer" protests and my father (a Korean vet) being insanely angry at Jane Fonda for her actions. It is something that has haunted me since the age of 8 or 9 and when I hear John Kerry spew his hatred of this country I get extremely angry. We need to pray that he does not get elected.

[spectre]

Do tell...??

Score one for Chris..sort of..

sw