After the Bush AWOL story had percolated for months, Col. Turnipseed finally remembered another glitch in his story: the fact that National Guard regulations allowed Guard members to miss duty as long as it was made up within the same quarter. And, in fact - according to the Times - that's what Bush did.
"A document in Mr. Bush's military records," the paper said, "showed credit for four days of duty ending Nov. 29 and for eight days ending Dec. 14, 1972, and, after he moved back to Houston, on dates in January, April and May." The paper found corroboration for the document, noting, "The May dates correlated with orders sent to Mr. Bush at his Houston apartment on April 23, 1973, in which Sgt. Billy B. Lamar told Mr. Bush to report for active duty on May 1-3 and May 8-10."
Yet another document obtained by the Times blew the Bush AWOL story out of the water. It showed that Mr. Bush served at various times from May 29, 1973, through July 30, 1973 - "a period of time questioned by The Globe," the Times sheepishly admitted.
AUSTIN, Texas -- When George W. Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard in 1968, there was little chance he would ever see Vietnam from the cockpit of his F-102 Delta Dagger jet fighter.
When the plane was in demand overseas, Bush was not yet qualified to fly it. By the time he passed his final combat flight test in June 1970, the Air Force was pulling the jets out of Southeast Asia.
Bush, the Texas governor and presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said in his autobiography that he and a friend, Fred Bailey, tried to join the Palace Alert program that rotated National Guard pilots into Vietnam. A colonel told them only a few more pilots would go and "Fred and I had not logged enough hours to participate," Bush wrote.
Retired Col. Maury Udell, who trained Bush to fly the F-102, has no doubt his pupil was willing to go to Vietnam. Udell agreed that Bush was too inexperienced for Palace Alert, but he said the young man did become a good fighter pilot. "George got really good in air-to-air combat," he said.
Udell, now a 270-pound judo expert who describes himself as a "war-type guy," said Bush had an extraordinary memory and ability to process information. From Udell's perspective, Bush's ability to overcome his aristocratic schooling at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., and Yale University and mix with the other guardsmen was more impressive. "It is OK to get a good education, but some of those people are a little off the wall," he said. "I just wanted to make sure that he was in it for real."
Udell said he spent six hours a day for six months training Bush. And that's not all. "We would go to the bar and play dead bug just like everybody else," he said. When someone yelled "dead bug" the pilots would hit the floor and stick their hands and feet up in the air. "The last guy to do that has to buy the next round," Udell said, laughing. "He was really good with folks," he said. But the young pilot did not take insults well: "You can't put him down too easily. He's really tough. He'll fight you."