It may be possible that Presidnet Bush missed a few drills tyring to secure his political future and there is nothing wrong with that as long as he had permission to miss from his superiors in the Guard. The press is just too effing stupid to get it, and the conservative pundits are just to dumb to take advantage on the air. All the libs are finding guy who can't remember (after thirty years and out of 800 guys) seeing bush.
The important thing is that there is no one who remembers Bush being disciplined for being absent. Not one commander, not one soldier, not one piece of paper.
Ask any schoolteacher. Do you remember the kids who follow the rules, or do you remember the discipline problems?
Duh.
It is frustrating to watch conservatives miss a key point of this "debate." The reserves are a pool of personnel readily available to mobilize in the event of a national emergency. The reserves are not a place where people go to get paid on weekends and punished if they don't go. As others have posted, a person can have a good reason to miss several months of drills, and the military is ok with that if the person makes up the drills. It is not so much important that they attend all monthly drills, but that they do make their yearly total points requirement and be otherwise TRAINED AND AVAILABLE.