Major Garrett just gave a report with Col. William Campanini who served with Bush. The Colonel said that no way would a Colonel send an individual pilot an order to have a physical. It wasn't done that way. He said pilots were scheduled for physicals based on the month of their birthday. They would be notified on the last day of the month of their birthday, which in Bush's case would be July 31st. Pilots had three months to get their physicals, which I believe would take us to October 31st. The memo written in May order him for a physical, is actually written weeks before he was even scheduled to begin the 3 month period within which he was to get the physical.
John Kerry has just lost another week in his campaign thanks to his Keystone Kops surrogates.
The two memos refer to a flight physical and a flight review board, both IAW ("in accordance with") AFM 35-13. But that would stand for "Air Force Manual" 35-13, and manuals are guidelines only. They have no regulatory authority. No one takes a physical exam, flight or not, IAW a manual. ...
So I went there and discovered, sure enough, that there was an Air Force Regulation 35-13, but no AF Manual 35-13 is listed. AFR 35-13 was superceded in 1990 by AFI36-2605 (Air Force Instruction, i.e., the same as a regulation). So I Googled AFI36-2605 and voilá! Here it is. This instruction implements Air Force Policy Directive 36-26, Military Force Management, and Department of Defense Instruction (DODI) 7280.3, Special Pay for Foreign Language Proficiency. It prescribes all procedures for administering the Air Force Military Personnel Testing System and Foreign Language Proficiency Pay (FLPP) program. Which is to say, this publication has nothing to do with flight physicals. From all this I conclude that the Killian-signed documents are forgeries, forged by someone without a very good knowledge of military correspondence or Air Force publications or procedures. Based on the Air Force's own online library of current and obsolete publications, I conclude that there never was an Air Force Manual 35-13, although there was an AF Regulation by that number. But a lieutenant colonel would never have made such a fundamental error as using "AFM" twice when he meant AFR.
There is a Sep 29 document which states that Bush was informed his flight status had been suspended on Aug 1. This would be in keeping with a due-date in July.