Posted on 09/07/2004 10:03:40 PM PDT by ambrose
Last modified Tuesday, September 7, 2004 9:54 PM PDT
New Bush records show he logged more than 300 flight hours in National Guard
By: MATT KELLEY - Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- President Bush ranked in the middle of his Air National Guard flight class and flew 336 hours in a fighter jet before letting his pilot status lapse and missing a key readiness drill in 1972, according to his flight records belatedly uncovered Tuesday under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Pentagon and Bush's campaign have claimed for months that all records detailing his fighter pilot career have been made public, but defense officials said they found two dozen new records detailing his training and flight logs after The Associated Press filed a lawsuit and submitted new requests under the public records law.
"Previous requests from other requesters for President Bush's Individual Flight Records did not lead to the discovery of these records because at the time President Bush left the service, flight records were subject to retention for only 24 months and we understood that neither the Air Force nor the Texas Air National Guard retained such records thereafter," the Pentagon told the AP.
"Out of an abundance of caution," the government "searched a file that had been preserved in spite of this policy" and found the Bush records, the letter said. "The Department of Defense regrets this oversight during the previous search efforts."
Bush's Vietnam-era service in the Texas Air National Guard has become an issue in the presidential campaign as the candidates spar over who would make the best commander in chief. Supporters of Democratic nominee John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran, have criticized Bush for serving stateside in the National Guard. Kerry's Republican critics claim Kerry did not deserve some of his five medals.
Bush has repeatedly said he is proud of his Air National Guard service. White House spokesmen said as late as last week the administration knew of no other records of Bush's military service.
"These documents confirm that the president served honorably in the National Guard," White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said Tuesday night.
Democratic National Committee communications director Jano Cabrera disagreed. "For months George Bush told the nation that all his military records were public," he said. "Now we know why Bush was trying so hard to withhold these records. When his nation asked him to be on call against possible surprise attacks, Bush wasn't there."
The newly released records show Bush, a lieutenant in the Texas Air National Guard, ranked No. 22 in a class of 53 pilots when he finished his flight training at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia in 1969.
Over the next three years, he logged 326.4 hours as a pilot and an additional 9.9 hours as a co-pilot, mostly in his the F-102A jet used to intercept enemy aircraft. Of the 278 hours he flew in the interceptor, about 77 hours were in the TF-102A, the two-seat trainer version of the one-seat fighter jet.
The records show his last flight was in April 1972, which is consistent with pay records indicating Bush had a large lapse of duty between April and October of that year. Bush has said he went to Alabama in 1972 to work on an unsuccessful Republican Senate campaign. Bush skipped a required medical exam that cost him his pilot's status in August of that year.
Bush's 2000 campaign suggested the future president skipped his medical exam in part because the F-102A was nearly obsolete. Records show Bush's Texas unit flew the F-102A until 1974 and used the jets as part of an air defense drill during 1972.
A six-month historical record of his 147th Fighter Interceptor Group, also turned over to the AP on Tuesday, shows some of the training Bush missed with his colleagues during that time.
Significantly, it showed the unit joined a "24-hour active alert mission to safeguard against surprise attack" in the southern United State beginning on Oct. 6, 1972, a time when Bush did not report for duty, according to his pay records.
Bush's lone service in October was outside Texas, presumably with an Alabama unit he had permission to train with in September, October and November 1972.
As part of the mission, the 147th kept two F-102a jets -- the same Bush flew before he was grounded -- on ready alert to be launched within five minutes' warning.
The records also show Bush made a grade of 88 on total airmanship and a perfect 100 for flying without navigational instruments, operating a T-38 System and studying applied aerodynamics. Other scores ranged from 89 in flight planning to 98 in aviation physiology.
The newly released records do not include any from five categories of documents Bush's commanders had been required to keep in response to the gaps in Bush's training in 1972 and 1973. For example, National Guard commanders were required to perform an investigation whenever any pilot skipped a medical exam and forward the results up the Air Force chain of command. No such documents have surfaced.
Bush's lone service in October was outside Texas, presumably with an Alabama unit he had permission to train with in September, October and November 1972.
From another AP article by the same author:
Bush's lone service in October came at another air base an Alabama, where he sought temporary permission to train away from his assigned squadron.
AP: Lawsuit Gets Bush Guard Papers Out
Who made that change?????
Heck, Clinton's files showed up in the trunk of a car in a junk yard...anything can happen
AP = Almost Proofread; Almost Pre-meditated.
This is getting ridiculous. They didn't have computers back then. People signed in on scraps of paper which could have gotten misplaced. Everything was on paper without computers. The President got an honorable discharge. End of story. He didn't betray his fellow soldiers either.
Bush fulfilled his military obligation by wiping out the Ba-athist regime in Iraq and capturing and killing two-thirds of the al-Qaeda leadership.
Maybe the same person who claimed the crowd booed when Bush wished Clinton well.
Significantly?
These guys are grasping at such straws.
Over 300 hours, not including training. In other words, he spent more time learning to fly and flying than Kerry did in "service" in Nam!
you just have to laugh at these pathetic Kerrytistas, desperately digging the dirt with such abandon it's clear the jig is up and they all know Kerry is a pathetic candidate. They should get a refund but the DNC would simply claim they could have known all along if they'd given Kerry the slightest bit of scrutiny, but they didn't, so it's really the fact they're such foolish suckers to have bought Hanoi John's hook, line & sinker, it's really themselves they should be mad at but they have no conscience so they'll just continue to lash out in hatred, vengeance filled anger.
The thing that really irritates me about this is that no one seems to understand the key ingredient of this issue: the National Guard is NOT the Active Army. I've served in both. In the Guard, if you have a personal obligation or job commitment, as long as you talk to your chain of command, they'll just as likely let you go "take care of it." No paperwork will be done, no records will be kept, but everyone still knows what's happening and where you are. It's not a bad thing! It's about National Guard and Reserve commanders understanding that the Guard/Reserve is not the sole focus of the soldier's life like it is on active duty.
I'm sure that something like that is what happened with President Bush. He told his chain that he wanted to go to Alabama with his civilian job, and they said, "No problem, but we can't pay you unless you find an Alabama unit to drill with..." I've seen stuff like this happen dozens of times. The soldier isn't AWOL, he simply has a *very* informal leave granted by his commander.
Are you accusing the AP of "gasp" BIAS? < /sarcasm>
While I agree with your sentiment, your math is way off. If Kerry spent 4 months in Vietnam (I'm guessing around 120 days), that's 2,880 hours for Kerry in Vietnam.
I worked with a guy for 2 years who never did any monthly drills for two years. He did his two weeks once per year and when I asked him why he didn't have to drill he said he had enough points not to?
Yep. The Guard works retirement based on a point system. You get x number of points for completing 12 drills and a two week annual training. For most Guardsmen, you'll have to spend twenty years in to acquire the needed number of points. In my case, five years on active duty gave me enough "points" to retire in the Guard, but I still needed twenty calendar years. I'm not sure how your friend did it, but stuff like that sounds vaguely familiar.
So true. He also didn't cause the unfortunate POW's in Nam to suffer torture, either, because of malicious, patently false statements made before Congress for personal political gain.
Bush is running on a four-year record as commander-in-chief, not on his guard service. Kerry WAS running on his four months in Nam 35 years ago, but now had flip-flopped back to attacking Bush's economic record. Now the AP is carrying Kerry's water, going back into his guard service. WHEN is the AP going to investigate ANY of Kerry's records, or demand that he release what he still sits upon? Can you say RATHER BIASED? Oops, that would be CBS.
Has the AP filed a similar suit to uncover Kerry's military records?
This issue will be a nonstarter among the vast voting public. Oh, sure -- Chris Matthews and the other sharks on the talking head shows will discuss this until we're sick of hearing it. But Bush has never made his NG service a central focus of his campaign, unlike Kerry and his "two tours" of Vietnam. People have pretty much made up their minds that in regard to Bush's NG record, it's irrelevant.
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