PING
BUMP
A commander's notes are not part of the official file.
Any soldier's (airman's) personnel file is governed by strict regulations on what can and cannot go into it. Great care is taken NOT to allow non-approved items within the personnel file that would do damage. Careers are made and broken on the basis of this file.
Therefore, the bottom line is this:
These forged memos, even if they were real, were NOT in Lt Bush's personnel file because his commander, who had the authority to put things in his personnel file, chose not to put them there. They were preliminary, process, memory-jogs, whatever.
What we know -- are CERTAIN OF -- is that this commander REJECTED them for inclusion in Lt Bush's personnel file. Otherwise, he could have pushed to have the information in them noted in some derogatory fashion for inclusion in the file.
And a "memo for record" does not mean anything other than for the writer's personal files; not the files of someone he's writing about.
Posted on taht other thread, by MineralMan:
"The IBM Executive typewriter, available at that time, created documents with proportional spacing. The military had lots and lots of them.
I know this, because about the time these memos were supposed to have been written, I used an IBM Executive to typeset the body text for a small magazine I published at the time.
This argument won't fly.
I just took a gander at those 'documents'. No typewriter typed that straight and clean (a ruler couldn't be any straighter than those lines). My immediate impression is that a laser printer was used in the creation of these docs. There are no strikemarks that a typewriter would make (and would still be visible on a copy) and there is no evidence of the blurring that would occur as the ink from a typewriter was absorbed into the fiber of the paper.
In short, the media is perpetratin' a fraud. Again.
The remarks about mono spaced fonts are tuue. Where I worked as a lawyer in 1970 and 1971 we used the best available IBM Selectric typewriters. They all typed a mono spaced font. When I was in the Army in 1968 and 1969 we used the same kind of typewriters.
I was in law school and beginning the practice in the 1965-1970 period when the first expensive, primitive word processors initially appeared. The commonest was the IBM MTST, about the size of a grand piano. None of these used proportionally spaced fonts.
Byron York's article on BUSH'S REAL GUARD SERVICE. Many points were new to me...
Bush’s National Guard years
Before you fall for Dems’ spin, here are the facts
What do you really know about George W. Bush’s time in the Air National Guard?
That he didn’t show up for duty in Alabama? That he missed a physical? That his daddy got him in?
News coverage of the president’s years in the Guard has tended to focus on one brief portion of that time — to the exclusion of virtually everything else. So just for the record, here, in full, is what Bush did:
The future president joined the Guard in May 1968. Almost immediately, he began an extended period of training. Six weeks of basic training. Fifty-three weeks of flight training. Twenty-one weeks of fighter-interceptor training.
That was 80 weeks to begin with, and there were other training periods thrown in as well. It was full-time work. By the time it was over, Bush had served nearly two years.
Not two years of weekends. Two years.
After training, Bush kept flying, racking up hundreds of hours in F-102 jets. As he did, he accumulated points toward his National Guard service requirements. At the time, guardsmen were required to accumulate a minimum of 50 points to meet their yearly obligation.
According to records released earlier this year, Bush earned 253 points in his first year, May 1968 to May 1969 (since he joined in May 1968, his service thereafter was measured on a May-to-May basis).
Bush earned 340 points in 1969-1970. He earned 137 points in 1970-1971. And he earned 112 points in 1971-1972. The numbers indicate that in his first four years, Bush not only showed up, he showed up a lot. Did you know that?
That brings the story to May 1972 — the time that has been the focus of so many news reports — when Bush “deserted” (according to anti-Bush filmmaker Michael Moore) or went “AWOL” (according to Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee).
Bush asked for permission to go to Alabama to work on a Senate campaign. His superior officers said OK. Requests like that weren’t unusual, says retired Col. William Campenni, who flew with Bush in 1970 and 1971.
“In 1972, there was an enormous glut of pilots,” Campenni says. “The Vietnam War was winding down, and the Air Force was putting pilots in desk jobs. In ’72 or ’73, if you were a pilot, active or Guard, and you had an obligation and wanted to get out, no problem. In fact, you were helping them solve their problem.”
So Bush stopped flying. From May 1972 to May 1973, he earned just 56 points — not much, but enough to meet his requirement.
Then, in 1973, as Bush made plans to leave the Guard and go to Harvard Business School, he again started showing up frequently.
In June and July of 1973, he accumulated 56 points, enough to meet the minimum requirement for the 1973-1974 year.
Then, at his request, he was given permission to go. Bush received an honorable discharge after serving five years, four months and five days of his original six-year commitment. By that time, however, he had accumulated enough points in each year to cover six years of service.
During his service, Bush received high marks as a pilot.
A 1970 evaluation said Bush “clearly stands out as a top notch fighter interceptor pilot” and was “a natural leader whom his contemporaries look to for leadership.”
A 1971 evaluation called Bush “an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot” who “continually flies intercept missions with the unit to increase his proficiency even further.” And a 1972 evaluation called Bush “an exceptional fighter interceptor pilot and officer.”
Now, it is only natural that news reports questioning Bush’s service — in The Boston Globe and The New York Times, on CBS and in other outlets — would come out now. Democrats are spitting mad over attacks on John Kerry’s record by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
And, as it is with Kerry, it’s reasonable to look at a candidate’s entire record, including his military service — or lack of it. Voters are perfectly able to decide whether it’s important or not in November.
The Kerry camp blames Bush for the Swift boat veterans’ attack, but anyone who has spent much time talking to the Swifties gets the sense that they are doing it entirely for their own reasons.
And it should be noted in passing that Kerry has personally questioned Bush’s service, while Bush has not personally questioned Kerry’s.
In April — before the Swift boat veterans had said a word — Kerry said Bush “has yet to explain to America whether or not, and tell the truth, about whether he showed up for duty.” Earlier, Kerry said, “Just because you get an honorable discharge does not, in fact, answer that question.”
Now, after the Swift boat episode, the spotlight has returned to Bush.
That’s fine. We should know as much as we can.
And perhaps someday Kerry will release more of his military records as well.
Byron York is a White House correspondent for National Review. His column appears in The Hill each week. E-mail: byork@thehill.com
So he couldn't have a say in how Bush performed? Why did Bush get an honorable discharge when he supposedly had these complaints against his service. And I don't know why Bush didn't take a desk job-why would a dummy want to fly one of those jets? I am sick of the media. Nov. 2 will tell and put an end to them. I want to see them suffer.
I don't recall exactly what we had for typewriters but there was only ONE IBM Selectric in an office of four.....and this was not a NG outfit.