Posted on 09/16/2004 2:02:11 PM PDT by Leroy S. Mort
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A former Texas Air National Guard official who served at the same time as President Bush says he believes the bigger story about gaps in Bush's service is being overlooked in disputes over the validity of certain Guard documents.
``I think the public ought to be concerned about his preferential treatment getting in and whether he satisfied his commitment to the Air Guard. Those are the two fundamental questions,'' said Robert Strong, the administrative officer in charge of air operations at Guard state headquarters from early 1971 until March 1972.
Documents publicized last week by the CBS program ``60 Minutes'' have been called into question by some experts and relatives of the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who supposedly wrote them when he was one of Bush's commanders in 1972 and 1973. The memos indicated that Killian had been pressured to sugarcoat Bush's performance and that the future president had ignored an order to take a physical.
CBS stood by its reporting, but CBS News President Andrew Heyward said the network would redouble its efforts to determine the authenticity of the documents.
Killian's former secretary, Marian Carr Knox, 86, of Houston has said she believed the memos were fake but their content accurately reflected Killian's opinions.
``I know that I didn't type them,'' she said in an interview with CBS. ``However, the information in those is correct.''
Strong told The Associated Press on Thursday that he couldn't vouch for the authenticity of the memos, but ``if Mrs. Knox didn't type those documents and she thinks they're fake, I'll go with her judgment.'' He said he doesn't know who provided CBS with the documents.
But Strong added that he and Knox worked closely with Killian and are in better position to know about his work habits and feelings about Bush than Killian's five children, who were between the ages of two and 19 in 1972. Strong said Killian's records would have been removed from his Guard office before his family would have been allowed to retrieve his personal items after he died in 1984.
Regardless of the authenticity of the memos, the question should be centered on Bush's Guard service, and what is indicated in the documents, Strong said.
``Why aren't we focusing on the content?'' Strong said, adding that he believes there are holes in Bush's official Guard record.
``The White House has just got to be thrilled to death that everybody's tormenting about subscripts and superscripts,'' he said, referring to the several days of debate among experts about whether the memos were forgeries generated on a computer instead or if a typewriter common in the 1970s was used.
As Bush flew to campaign in Minnesota on Thursday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One that ``CBS has now acknowledged that the crux of their story may have been based on forged documents.''
Strong confirmed that at least one of the documents used by CBS bore a faxed header indicating it had been sent from a Kinko's copy shop in Abilene. Strong said he was shown copies of the documents about three days before the ``60 Minutes'' broadcast on which he appeared last week.
Bill Burkett, a retired National Guard officer who lives just outside Abilene, has been cited in reports in Newsweek and The New York Times as a source for CBS' report. His lawyer, David Van Os, issued a statement saying Burkett ``no longer trusts any possible outcome of speaking to the press on any issue regarding George W. Bush.''
Burkett did not return several phone messages left by The Associated Press this week, and did not talk to an AP reporter who visited his ranch in Blair on Thursday.
Burkett, 55, told The Associated Press in February that he had overheard a conversation in 1997 between then-Gov. Bush's chief of staff, Joe Allbaugh, and then-Adjutant Gen. Daniel James of the Texas Air National Guard in which the two men spoke about getting rid of any military records that would ``embarrass the governor.''
Burkett said he saw documents from Bush's file discarded in a trash can a few days later at Camp Mabry in Austin. Burkett described them as performance and pay documents.
Allbaugh and James denied the allegations.
Had Bush not fulfilled his obligation to the ANG, he wouldn't have received an honorable discharge. Why is that the left doesn't get this? (I guess they don't understand the concept of "honorable.")
What's more scandalous? Bush missing a physical, or John Kerry coming home and stabbing troops in Vietnam in the back?
Only one of Killian's children has been quoted publicly on this--and from Strong's formulation I would bet that he wasn't the youngest of the five children. Anyway, before Killian died, George H. W. Bush was Vice President of the US and Killian could well have had conversations at that time with his son about Lt. George W. Bush.
I wonder if there's a RICO statute that can be employed here?
Smart move DNC. If there's one thing the American public is just dying to know it's what happened in the TexANG in 1972 and 1973. This Iraq, WOT, Social Security and the rest can wait until Gunga Dan runs it to ground. Don't worry McAwful, this really doesn't make you look desperate, negative, whiny, and irrelevant.
Reporters who had never served in the military in any capacity would later pick apart Bush's decision to join the Texas Air National Guard as a fighter pilot. The National Guard is primarily a domestic military service, but it can be called to active duty. While there was a waiting list to join, there were four openings for pilots, according to retired Col. Rufus. G. Martin, then personnel officer in charge of the 147th Fighter Group. Most people who joined did not want to undertake the almost two years of full-time training required to become a pilot. Martin said Bush got the last pilot opening.Bush denied that family influence was used to get him into the guard. After an exhaustive investigation, the Los Angeles Times concluded, "No evidence has surfaced to dispute his statement that neither he nor his father, by then a member of Congress from Houston, sought preferential treatment for him."
The strategy by the DNC is the equivalent of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. While it is particularly odious for them to focus on military service from some thirty years ago, they will lose bigtime if they attempt this avenue, since any real focus on the President's NG time will result in a threefold scrutiny on Kerry's post-Vietnam "service" to the US, obviously very damning and quite apart from his active duty time which is fraught with problems. Likely this will put the final stake in the heart of his candidacy. It's debateable whether Kerry has people in charge who want him to win, apparently.
The months in question are June, July, August, September, and October of 1972.
Bingo! In fact, unlike the media that has been scrambling for over 4 years to find something on Bush...including using a dead man as their source, they ignored a very living, Col. Eugene Holmes in 1992 who signed an affadavit calling Clinton a liar. If the issue here, as the media describes it, is the credibility and honesty of a president, than why did the media not only marginalize the actions of this draft dodger, but allow him to actually lie about the events involving his non-service in Vietnam.
Clinton wasn't just a draft-dodger, he was a man who lied on at least two occasions regarding his ROTC status...as he deliberately manipulated the system for his benefit. These same idiots who claim Bush got preferential treatment, ignored that Senator William Fullbright worked on Clinton's behalf to get him into the U of Arkansas ROTC as a university student...when Clinton had no intention of enrolling at U of A, as he went off to Oxford and later, Yale. He continued to lie about his ROTC status at the university.
It's amazing to see the fraudulent sources the media is using to try and bring down this president, when they had documented evidence and eyewitness testimony that what Clinton did was much worse. And just as they are doing with Kerry, the media ignored the actions that Clinton was engaged in as our soliders were still figting and dying.
This media that never gave a rats a** about service to this country is all of the suddened concerned about a few months of Bush's service in the NG...at a time when the war was already winding down. They ignore that at the peak of Vietnam...and the four years following, not only was Bush fullfilling his obligations, he was putting in much more time than was required. They ignore that as Bush was still in the NG during this disputed time, Kerry was already back from his 4-month tour of duty and was not only accusing his fellow soldiers of war crimes...he was meeting with the enemy in Paris. It's freakin' unbelieveable!
Gary Killian is the one how has been quoted -- and he was IN the Guard unit with his father. I believe he was an officer.
He also said last night on H&C that Ms. Knox was NOT his fahter's secretary, that she was assigned to someone else and occasionally did typing for Killian.
Great link! Thanks. I had just been about to post a question about WTF Strong is.
That's all that needs to be said...
I'll have you know that, per a Rasmussen poll of yesterday or the day before, fully 16% of the American people think this is important. (They didn't ask, AFAIK, but I'm sure most of them post at DU -- LOL!)
Don't you just FEEEEEEEL Killian MUST have discussed 1LT Bush with her, though???
That accounts for her remark to Rather that General Killian could never remember her name!
Yeah, he was just on Hannity reinterating that Knox not only wasn't her father's personal secretary, but that there was also another secretary who might know a little bit more. Since these were roving secretaries, it is hard to believe that the Colonel would've confided with her on any type of "personal" information regarding another serviceman. It's not only unprofessional, it's the very thing that can lead to rumors, causing dissention within the ranks.
Killian also gave Hannity another name of an administrative officer who he said Sean should contact since he was much more familiar with his dad than any of these secretaries. I don't even understand what this crap is about since we already do have an official fitness report on Bush...signed by Killian, that dispells all this nonsense.
I thought she meant Bush couldn't remember her name, that he kept confusing her with his "daddy's" secretary; it sounded like a catty remark to me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.