Bet Bush can't do this
Posted on 09/07/2004 9:36:47 PM PDT by Former Military Chick
President Bush claims that in the fall of 1972, he fulfilled his Air National Guard duties at a base in Alabama. But Bob Mintz was there - and he is sure Mr. Bush wasn't.
Plenty of other officers have said they also don't recall that Mr. Bush ever showed up for drills at the base. What's different about Mr. Mintz is that he remembers actively looking for Mr. Bush and never finding him.
Mr. Mintz says he had heard that Mr. Bush - described as a young Texas pilot with political influence - had transferred to the base. He heard that Mr. Bush was also a bachelor, so he was looking forward to partying together. He's confident that he'd remember if Mr. Bush had shown up.
"I'm sure I would have seen him," Mr. Mintz said yesterday. "It's a small unit, and you couldn't go in or out without being seen. It was too close a space." There were only 25 to 30 pilots there, and Mr. Bush - a U.N. ambassador's son who had dated Tricia Nixon - would have been particularly memorable.
I've steered clear until now of how Mr. Bush evaded service in Vietnam because I thought other issues were more important. But if Bush supporters attack John Kerry for his conduct after he volunteered for dangerous duty in Vietnam, it's only fair to scrutinize Mr. Bush's behavior.
It's not a pretty sight. Mr. Bush was saved from active duty, and perhaps Vietnam, only after the speaker of the Texas House intervened for him because of his family's influence.
Mr. Bush signed up in May 1968 for a six-year commitment, justifying the $1 million investment in training him as a pilot. But after less than two years, Mr. Bush abruptly stopped flying, didn't show up for his physical and asked to transfer to Alabama. He never again flew a military plane.
Mr. Bush insists that after moving to Alabama in 1972, he served out his obligation at Dannelly Air National Guard Base in Montgomery (although he says he doesn't remember what he did there). The only officer there who recalls Mr. Bush was produced by the White House - he remembers Mr. Bush vividly, but at times when even Mr. Bush acknowledges he wasn't there.
In contrast, Mr. Mintz is a compelling witness. Describing himself as "a very strong military man," he served in the military from 1959 to 1984. A commercial pilot, he is now a Democrat but was a Republican for most of his life, and he is not a Bush-hater. When I asked him whether the National Guard controversy raises questions about Mr. Bush's credibility, Mr. Mintz said only, "That's up to the American people to decide."
In his first interview with a national news organization, Mr. Mintz recalled why he remembered Mr. Bush as a no-show: "Young bachelors were kind of sparse. For that reason, I was looking for someone to haul around with." Why speak out now? He said, "After a lot of soul-searching, I just feel it's my duty to stand up and do the right thing."
Another particularly credible witness is Leonard Walls, a retired Air Force colonel who was then a full-time pilot instructor at the base. "I was there pretty much every day," he said, adding: "I never saw him, and I was there continually from July 1972 to July 1974." Mr. Walls, who describes himself as nonpolitical, added, "If he had been there more than once, I would have seen him."
The sheer volume of missing documents, and missing recollections, strongly suggests to me that Mr. Bush blew off his Guard obligations. It's not fair to say Mr. Bush deserted. My sense is that he (like some others at the time) neglected his National Guard obligations, did the bare minimum to avoid serious trouble and was finally let off by commanders who considered him a headache but felt it wasn't worth the hassle to punish him.
"The record clearly and convincingly proves he did not fulfill the obligations he incurred when he enlisted in the Air National Guard," writes Gerald Lechliter, a retired Army colonel who has made the most meticulous examination I've seen of Mr. Bush's records (I've posted the full 32-page analysis here). Mr. Lechliter adds that Mr. Bush received unauthorized or fraudulent payments that breached National Guard rules, according to the documents that the White House itself released.
Does this disqualify Mr. Bush from being commander in chief? No. But it should disqualify the Bush campaign from sliming the military service of a rival who still carries shrapnel from Vietnam in his thigh.
"Mintz, who at one time was a registered Republican and in recent years has cast votes in presidential elections for independent Ross Perot and Democrat Al Gore, confesses to “a negative reaction” to what he sees as out-and-out dissembling on President Bush’s part."
From Memphis Flyer, February 13, 2004
There was a guy on FNC last night, I think, he was from Arkansas. In 2000 he saw the stuff about Bush's NG in Alabama and called headquarters to say he remembered Bush in AL. The Bush campaign never called him back.
So sad. The New York Times tabloid is working overtime to try to help their helpless boy, Kerry.
Bet Bush can't do this
Every single word of it.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040908/D84V54IG0.html
Kerry backers have been hyping this tired story since last Winter....see Kerry Blog for February 2004:
http://blog.johnkerry.com/blog/archives/001234.html
C'mon Sasso, is this the best you can do?
That's really strange... Bush was there, but doesn't remember seeing you, Bob.
"It bothered me that he wouldn't 'fess up and say, 'Okay, guys, I cut out when the rest of you did your time.' He shouldn't have tried to dance around the subject. I take great exception to that. I spent 39 years defending my country."
Like his old comrade Mintz, Bishop, now 65, was a pilot for Eastern Airlines during their reserve service in 1972 at Dannelly. Mintz then lived in Montgomery; Bishop commuted from Atlanta, a two-hour drive away. Mintz and Bishop retired from the Guard with the ranks of lieutenant colonel and colonel, respectively.
Bishop, especially, is bitter about the fate of Eastern, which went bankrupt during the administration of President George H.W. Bush, the current incumbent's father. "I watched my company dissolve under his policies." Both Bushes were "children of privilege," unlike himself and Mintz.
"Our fathers were poor dirt farmers. We would not have been given the same considerations he and his father were," says Bishop, who maintains that, just as the junior Bush used family and political influence to jump himself ahead of 500 other flight training applicants, the senior Bush "apparently" did, too, when he became a naval aviator during World War II. "I applaud him for volunteering, but he should have waited his turn like everybody else."
But, says Bishop, "At least I can give him credit for serving his country." That is more, he suggested, than can be granted the younger Bush.
Would he consider voting for the president's reelection? "Naw, this goes to an integrity issue. I like either [John] Kerry or [John] Edwards better." And who would Mintz be voting for? "Not for any Texas politicians," was the Memphian's sardonic answer.
RECAP: NRO - The facts about the President's service. Bush and the National Guard: Case Closed
NRO ^ | February 18, 2004 | Byron York
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1209713/posts
Gee, thought I'd heard Gerald Lechliter's rant before. Lo and behold, he peddled it in February to Salon.com.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/letters/2004/02/11/blumenthal/
He's no neutral, either. He's an original endorser of the radical group "Veterans Against the Iraq War," that marched in New York during the Republican National Convention.
http://www.vaiw.org/vet/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=6
Didn't Barnes, or whatever his name was, say that none of the Bushes ever asked for this supposed favor? They can't seem to get their story straight.
There is some new information though, the President scored well on a variety of tests. I'm particularly fond of "a perfect 100 for flying without navigational instruments." Of course after Susan Estrich comes out with her drunk and alcoholic allegations, as she has promised, it will make the President's perfect score that much more impressive :)
Former Dannelly worker: Bush not AWOL
By Eric Fleischauer
DAILY Staff Writer
eric@decaturdaily.com · 340-2435
Retired Master Sgt. James Copeland does not care so much whether people think President Bush went absent without leave in 1972, but one thing he hears bothers him plenty.
"Maybe the Bush family was well known in Texas, but we didn't know who he was here. He was just another guy in a flight jacket," Copeland said Sunday.
Copeland, who lives in Hartselle, retired from the Air Force on Jan. 31, 1980. He was the disbursement accounting supervisor, a full-time position, for Dannelly Air National Guard Base in Montgomery from Oct. 28, 1971, to Oct. 27, 1975. His office was less than 100 yards from the hangar where Bush performed drills.
Rumors say Bush went AWOL while assisting Winton "Red" Blount in an unsuccessful campaign for U.S. Senate focus on 1972 and 1973.
Copeland, 65, remembers meeting Bush on two occasions. He does not remember the precise dates. On one occasion, Copeland said, Bush and Lt. Col. John "Bill" Calhoun came to Copeland's office with a question about Bush's pay. Copeland is not sure, but he believes the question had to do with where to mail Bush's checks.
Bush was never a member of the Alabama National Guard, he just did his drills here. For that reason, Copeland thinks he referred the pay question to the paymaster for the Texas National Guard.
Not only did he say it, he testified to it under oath.
Bob "Buck" Mintz in his Germantown, Tennessee den.
The libs - even my Dad - think that people knew who Bush was then because his dad was UN Ambassador. Everybody who's ever seen a "man on the street" interview knows the average joe doesn't even know who the VP is typically, let alone the Secretary of Defense or Secretary of State, to say nothing of UN Ambassador. Somebody should ask this turkey some spot questions about other dignitaries at the time and see if he remembers their names. Otherwise he's a fraud.
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