Posted on 09/16/2004 9:17:20 PM PDT by Merry
"Bush served his country without pay"
The following is a post written by a regular reader of this site known to those who visit the comments section as "Oak Leaf". He is an active reservist with over twenty years of service that includes both the National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve. He has extensive experience in personnel programs management and has served on the faculty at a senior service college. Air Guard Service Without Pay
When George W. Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard, a component of the US Air Force, he entered into a six year statutory service obligation. On December 1, 1969 he signed DD Form 1644 "Ready Reserve Service Agreement" which states, "I agree to be a member of the Ready Reserve until 26 May 1974." I first need to explain that the ready reserve is all reserve soldiers that are members of both "drilling units" and to the "individual ready reserve" which is simply a pool of individuals that can be called to active duty. When you review the "officer record brief" of 1LT George W. Bush, you find that on October 1, 1973 he was discharged from the Texas Air National Guard and re-assigned to the Air Reserve Personnel Center (Individual Ready Reserve). He remained assigned to the Air Reserve Personnel Center until he was ultimately discharged the following May. To a civilian this is slightly confusing because the Texas discharge makes it appear that he was completely discharged from the military, but this is not correct. The discharge simply reflects that he is no longer affiliated with the Military Department of the State of Texas. Yes, each state has a "Military Department."
With every enlistment in the reserves an "Acknowledgement of Service Obligations" is part of the enlistment contract. It states, "You will be required to attend all scheduled unit training assemblies unless you are excused by proper authority. If you accrue 9 or more unexcused absences during any continuous 365 day period you may be declared an unsatisfactory participant." Each month a reserve unit is required to complete a "Record of Reserve Training" that lists all assigned members of that unit. Each four hour period on that list represents a training assembly and you will be coded with either P (present), E (excused), U (unexcused) or ET/RST ("other training"). Had 1LT Bush received nine U's he would have been declared an unsatisfactory participant. If you missed two weekends and one morning you would have 9 U's. Because this never occurred, it means that he was either granted E's as an excused absence or performed equivalent training (ET). That alone verifies he met his obligation
The old media remains extremely focused on the performance of duties that meets that old saying, "one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer." That saying falls in line with "my recruiter lied to me." Civilians would be astonished to discover that many reservists perform duties without pay. In reviewing my own records, 13% of my reserve man days in my first six years were without pay and surprisingly while a college student, 21% of my reserve man days were performed without pay. A search of the web led me to AF Form 1288 (front/back) in which 1LT Bush requests duty in Alabama on May 24, 1972. Block 17 shows that the request is "no pay, training category G." In the approval section, it is clearly disclosed that this is "pay group none." Why is this important? Regardless, of the ultimate unit he ended up training with, it shows that 1LT Bush was willing to train without pay. The old media remains focused on pay records!! In regards to pay records, USA Today states, "They show he was paid for 82 days in 1972 and 1973, but show no service for five months between April and October 1972." Pay records would show no service during this time period because he was not paid! 1LT Bush served his country without pay. That is why there is no pay record.
1LT Bush can be "faulted" for one thing and that is keeping his retirement points correct. I need to point out that, "It is the soldier's responsibility to insure that his or her retirement points are correct."
1LT Bush was "responsible" for getting those retirement points posted to his record. I would assume that the records were sent forward and there was never any follow up because he chose not to serve 20 years. Because he earned at least 50 points for each year of service meeting the requirement of a satisfactory year there was just no incentive to pursue further record updating. In my own reserve career, I am still trying to correct unpaid duty records that go back 20 years. I have three comments on Oak Leaf's post. First, I want to thank him for taking the time to review these documents and to write such a detailed, yet clear and easy to follow analysis. Second, I think one reason the media has done such a pathetic job covering these matters is because they do not have enough people within their ranks with any military experience. Third, this point that Oak Leaf makes illustrates one more stark contrast between President Bush and Senator Kerry. Bush evidently worked without pay, and probably, due to inadequate follow-up on the paperwork, without any recognition for that time. John Kerry went to ridiculous lengths to document every bruise and scratch he got in Vietnam, and to make sure every activity he was engaged in was not only written up for awards, but was even recreated and memorialized on film. Isn't that just everything voters need to know about the character of these two men in a nutshell?
I have no idea. He would be very good, as he is a former Marine pilot.
He may not know how the Guard works, but I'm sure he could
find out without his eyes glazing over.
I have seen him anchoring on the weekend, lately.
OK.....
While it's always a good time to be down this way, if you can't be here now's a good time for that. Frances last week knocked down trees and power lines all over the place - 400,000 in Georgia w/o power. Now tonight I'm watching these pine trees wondering which ones I need to take down. Ivan blew up some tornadoes all around us, but not here. But up around Atlanta Peachtree Creek is flooding worse than it has in 30 years. Some Freepers are w/o power (but still posting on the Georgia board with a generator - how great is that!) and they've got some water in homes.
But it's still better to be here than anywhere else in the world.
Why, thank you!
Would you want ME as your designated driver?
lol
Never spent much time around the Air Force Fly Boys, but I could see this from a mile away.....ATTENTION TO DETAIL.
Not on a racetrack...lol
Here it is:
We nominate Dan for the First Annual Golden Urinal Award as the urinalist who peed on the truth the most this year.
Ya know what I mean, Vern.
It's kinda like they got this wee little thing where they don't wanna know.
I am very sorry to hear of the troubles down that way.
My folks are close to the MS/AL border, and are without
power as we speak. There are trees down everywhere.
I was told tonight that Meridian has never seen this kind
of devastation. Don't know when the power will be back on.
"(but still posting on the Georgia board with a generator - how great is that!)"
That is SO cool! Give them all my best, and tell them my
prayers are with them.
thank you
The 'citation' wouldn't have been typed in MS Word Times New Roman typeface, would it? ;-)
"Not on a racetrack...lol"
Hey, now! I'm even better in traffic. ;o)
I hate to leave, but I must. I am outta uniform.
I need to don the jammies, and go to bed.
I enjoyed it. Take care.
You're welcome
Bye
Well, the second citation, issued in the late 60's or early 70's, uses a proportionally-spaced font, fully justified, but could be legit if citations of that era were typeset or engraved. Of course, whoever spent the time and effort to typeset or engrave Kerry's second citation probably wouldn't be too happy to know how his efforts were treated.
The third citation, which Kerry says was issued in 1986, was set in micro-justified Courier--most likely with a word processor and daisy-wheel printer; it was not hand-signed; most likely signed by auto-pen.
Yeah, they got hit bad down on the coast. Bridges busted up, homes flooded or washed away. I've missed a lot of the news today about how bad the destruction is, but what I've seen looked awful. Hope your family are all well and safe.
I just thank God it didn't hit New Orleans where they had 10,000 body bags ready to be put into use. When I read that I thought we were living in India or something.
Thanks, I wondered if anyone took a look at those for their typesetting instead of just the content.
why are you pinging me????
Did I ASK to be put on a ping list????
Very interesting. The MSM will have to put some more ice on it, and Rather will need about a 200 pound block of ice to sit on.
Thank you. I'm always interested in learning new things. My ex-husband used to say I'm a collector of odd knowledge, cuz I seem to have learned a disjointed bit about a bunch of different things.
Thanks for the ping. This is great. We have to get the media to let the public know about this.
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