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Abilene Reporter News
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URL: http://www.reporter-news.com/abil/nw_local/article/0,1874,ABIL_7959_2723860,00.html
Area man relays his claims about Bush Guard service
By Jerry Daniel Reed / Reporter-News Staff Writer
March 12, 2004
The campaign to create an image for George W. Bush led to Bush and some of his top aides lying about his military service, a retired Texas National Guard lieutenant colonel claimed during a speech to the Taylor County Democratic Club Thursday night.
"They lied, and they continue to lie," Bill Burkett told about 30 Democratic Club members. Burkett moved to Abilene about 1985 and to rural Callahan County in 2000, he said.
Last month, Burkett landed at the center of the controversy over President Bush’s Air National Guard service when Burkett told the Dallas Morning News that in 1997, he had overheard a conversation and found some discarded documents related to Bush’s service records.
"I just really didn’t know what to think of it," said Glyn Eastus, a member of the club’s executive board, of the speech.
She said she’d like to hear more of the story.
"I find him very credible," said Curtis Smith, past president of the club.
Both said they were surprised by Burkett’s style, which was much like preaching.
Burkett said he did not start out to be partisan, but acknowledged that he had grown more so. In his often-fiery talk to the Democratic club, he extolled bipartisanship.
Burkett said he overheard a speakerphone conversation in mid-1997 between Gen. Daniel James III, then Texas State Guard commander, and Joe Allbaugh, then-Gov. George W. Bush’s chief of staff, regarding Bush’s service records.
Allbaugh asked for permission to review Bush’s file to make certain nothing in it would embarrass the governor, Burkett said.
In an essay Burkett wrote in March 2003, Burkett leveled a more serious charge: that he had been sent to temporary duty in Panama after angering Bush by refusing to falsify records, including Bush’s own official personnel records.
That was "poorly stated," Burkett said Thursday night after his speech. He had not been ordered to falsify records, he said.
But out of loyalty, he was expected to keep mum about others’ actions to minimize negative information about Bush’s service record, he said.
James, now commander of the Air National Guard, and Allbaugh have both denied Burkett’s assertions.
Burkett’s motives have been questioned by critics who noted that he and others, including Gough and Conn, had been at odds with the Texas Guard leadership over issues regarding the guard’s military preparedness and Burkett’s claim that he was denied military-paid medical care for five months in 1998 after he was stricken with a meningoencephalitis.Burkett’s claim that he had contracted meningoencephalitis while on temporary duty in Panama in early 1998 has been disputed by the doctor who was state surgeon at Guard headquarters in 1997.