May 12, 2003

AWOL Update

AWOL Update
I've received a fair amount of email on the "Bush AWOL?" story and while I'm not going to post everything, I thought I'd address the basic arguments of some of the letter writers who, despite the mounting evidence, believe Bush indeed did shirk his National Guard duties. They tend to conflate three issues into one. The basic charge against Bush is that he used family connections to jump ahead in line and get into the Guard, in order to avoid serving in Vietnam, and that toward the end of his six-year enlistment he stopped showing up for required drills. Start here and scroll up if you're new to all this.

There are three basic allegations the anti-Bushies make, and and even if any are true, they do not prove the others.

As to the first and second charges, some emailers have said I should have mentioned that GWB's father's dad, Prescott Bush, was a "powerful" U.S. senator from Connecticut. Some say that proves GWB got into the Guard based on family connections. Others imply it proves GWB's family was famous in 1972 in Alabama and, therefore, the colonel at the Alabama base would indeed have remembered seeing GWB there if he was ever there. As to the former, I'll just respond that if GWB used family connections to get into the Guard, he still joined a unit elements of which were involved in combat in Vietnam at the time he enlisted. (Some critics at this point note that GWB checked a box indicating he didn't desire to go to Vietnam, as if this made him immune to going if Uncle Sam had called up his unit. But that's silly - if Uncle Sam had sent the 111th Fighter-Interceptor squadron to Vietnam, Bush would have had to go. And you can't fault anyone for checking a box indicating they didn't want to go to combat.)

As to the latter, Prescott Bush's term as senator from Connecticut ended in 1962, six years before GWB enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard, and a full decade before he allegedly failed to make his required appearances on the base in Alabama. Now, I'm a political junkie. I follow the news. I breath politics like fish breathe water. And, guess what, I can't name both U.S. senators from Alabama, which is less 70 miles south of my house. The current Alabama senators, I mean. I follow issues not personalities, but I think one of them is Jeff Sessions, but I can't name both. And I sure can't name the state's two senators from a decade ago. So I Googled it. Howell T. Heflin was a U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1979-1997. Jeremiah Denton was a Senator from 1981-1987. Oh. I didn't know that - and Alabama is just 70 miles away, not 1,000 miles away as Connecticut is from Alabama.

Now, please explain to me why a National Guard colonel in Alabama in 1972 would have any idea who Prescott Bush was and that he had been a Senator from Connecticut, a decade before. Sorry, it just doesn't pass the reality test. It is just plain silly to argue either that GWB was allowed to shirk his Guard duties while in Alabama because of his famous family - or, contradictorily - that he was never on the base because the colonel can't remember him and would have remembered him because of his "famous family" that was famous in, well, Texas and Connecticut but sure as heck not in Alabama. If the family was famous in Alabama, the colonel would remember that GWB didn't show up - but that's not what the colonel says. He says he doesn't recall GWB at all. And if the family wasn't powerful and connected in Alabama, GWB wouldn't have been allowed to shirk his duties. The most logical explanation as that GWB put in his hours on the base, and no one in Alabama knew he was the son of a future president as well as a future president and no one took special note of him. Just another National Guard lieutenant, of which there are many in Alabama.

As to the third charge, that Bush shirked his duties, the first proof that is false is that he was honorably discharged having completed more than the minimum service required in his enlistment contract. (Why do the anti-Bushies focus so much on missing records they can't see, and ignore the honorable discharge they can see?) Meanwhile, it is worth noting, there is no credible allegation that Bush shirked his duties during the first four years of his enlistment. The record plainly shows he showed up, completed his training and was considered to be a good pilot. Now, if he was using family connections in order to shirk his duties, would he have had to show up, and be diligent, and really actually learn to fly the F-102? Wouldn't he have been able to get a desk job and show up only when he felt like it?

You don't get to be a good pilot by not showing up. Bush showed up. As for the last 18 months of his enlistment - he was discharged early with, remember, his service time requirement completed - Bush's attendance is difficult to prove because of missing records. As I've shown in previous posts over the last few days, missing records are commonplace in the military, but the absence of the records does not prove Bush himself was absent. The history we have records of show Bush showed up when he was supposed to. In looking for the truth, if you don't have hard evidence you look for trends. Bush's personal history of good attendance and performance in the first four years argues in favor of the proposition that he fulfilled his duties during the latter part of his enlistment.

His honorable discharge is the evidentiary coup de grace.