Re-examination of Bush file shows he skirted Guard duty

President avoided punitive call-up despite absences

Boston Globe
Sept. 8, 2004 12:00 AM

In February, when the White House made public hundreds of pages of President Bush's military records, White House officials repeatedly insisted that the records proved that Bush fulfilled his military commitment in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

But Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation, a Globe re-examination of the records shows: Twice during his Guard service, first when he joined in May 1968 and again before he transferred out of his unit in mid-1973 to attend Harvard Business School, Bush signed documents pledging to meet training commitments or face a punitive call-up to active duty.

He didn't meet the commitments or face the punishment, the records show. The 1973 document has been overlooked in news media accounts. The 1968 document has received scant notice.

On July 30, 1973, shortly before he moved from Houston to Cambridge, Bush signed a document that declared, "It is my responsibility to locate and be assigned to another Reserve forces unit or mobilization augmentation position. If I fail to do so, I am subject to involuntary order to active duty for up to 24 months." Under Guard regulations, Bush had 60 days to locate a new unit.

White House misspeaks

But Bush never signed up with a Boston-area unit. In 1999, Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett told the Washington Post that Bush finished his six-year commitment at a Boston-area Air Force Reserve unit after he left Houston. Not so, Bartlett now concedes. "I must have misspoke," Bartlett, who is now the White House communications director, said in a recent interview.

And early in his Guard service, on May 27, 1968, Bush signed a "statement of understanding" pledging to achieve "satisfactory participation" that included attendance at 24 days of annual weekend duty and 15 days of annual active duty. "I understand that I may be ordered to active duty for a period not to exceed 24 months for unsatisfactory participation," the statement reads.

Yet Bush, a fighter-interceptor pilot, performed no service at all for one six-month period in 1972 and for an additional period of almost three months in 1973, the records show.

Not seen for 12 months

The re-examination of Bush's records by the Globe, along with interviews with military specialists who have reviewed regulations from that era, show that Bush's attendance at required training drills was so irregular that his superiors could have disciplined him or ordered him to active duty in 1972, 1973 or 1974. But they did neither. In fact, Bush's unit certified in late 1973 that his service had been "satisfactory," just four months after Bush's commanding officer wrote that Bush had not been seen at his unit for the previous 12 months.

In a statement to the Globe on Tuesday night, Bartlett sidestepped questions about Bush's record. In the statement, Bartlett asserted again that Bush would not have been honorably discharged if he had not "met all his requirements." In a follow-up e-mail, Bartlett declared, "And if he hadn't met his requirements you point to, they would have called him up for active duty for up to two years."

That assertion by the White House spokesman infuriates retired Army Col. Gerald A. Lechliter, one of several retired military officers who have studied Bush's records and old National Guard regulations.

"He broke his contract with the United States government - without any adverse consequences. And the Texas Air National Guard was complicit in allowing this to happen," Lechliter said Tuesday. "He was a pilot. It cost the government a million dollars to train him to fly. So he should have been held to an even higher standard."

Even retired Lt. Col. Albert Lloyd Jr., a former Texas Air National Guard personnel chief who vouched for Bush at the White House's request in February, agreed that Bush walked away from his obligation to join a Reserve unit in the Boston area when he moved to Cambridge in September 1973. "(Bush) took a chance that he could be called up for active duty. But the war was winding down, and he probably knew that the Air Force was not enforcing the penalty."

'Hundreds did the same'

But Lloyd said that singling out Bush for criticism is unfair. "There were hundreds of guys like him who did the same thing," he said.

Lawrence Korb, an assistant secretary of Defense for manpower and reserve affairs in the Reagan administration, said after studying many of the documents that it is clear to him that Bush "gamed the system." And he agreed with Lloyd that Bush was not alone. "If I cheat on my income tax and don't get caught, I'm still cheating on my income tax."