Talk:George W. Bush military service controversy

I think this could really use a better title. I don't think anyone popularly knows this as the "Texas Air National Guard controversy." The controversy is about Bush, not the Texas Guard. How about something like: "George W. Bush military service controversy"? Cecropia 01:42, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm definitely open to a better title. This one was the result of a small amount of brainstorming on my part, which produced a list of titles none of which were that great. However, I don't know if your proposed title has any better recognition than this one. -- VV 03:10, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I just think Bush's name should be in the title, since the issue is specifically about him. In fact, it occurs to me that the time in dispute was actually in Alabama. How about "President Bush National Guard controversy"? Cecropia 05:14, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I tend to agree Bush's name should be there (although, e.g., Watergate is clearly about Nixon). Not to sound overly negative, however, but I'm not happy with any proposal yet (including, notably, my own). For instance, there are two "President Bush"'s, and in both cases I wouldn't bother mentioning "President" in the title (cf. Lincoln's second inaugural address). While the main events may be in Alabama, it was the Texas Guard, no? I think you're on to something with "military service controversy", though, as we can then throw in people who say daddy kept him out of 'Nam. -- VV 06:03, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"While the main events may be in Alabama, it was the Texas Guard, no?" As a technical matter, no. National Guard (unlike Army Reserve) is state-specific. He was being allowed temporary duty in the Alabama Guard (not uncommon) but it was the Alabama Guard, not the Texas Guard, that he was supposed to have failed to show up for. But I'm looking at the fact that, after the election, no matter who wins, I don't think one person in a hundred (especially outside the US) will have a clue what the "Texas Air National Guard controversy" is about.

BTW, I don't know how potent the "daddy kept him out of 'Nam" issue can be. Most political daddies kept their kids out of the war, and the easy way they let celebrities out was a scandal in its own time--like Joe Namath because he had a bad knee. Gore served essentially as a favor to his daddy to counter charges of softness on defense in the latter man's reelection campaign. Sorry to ramble on, but a number of people have observed that the Vietnam War might not have been so easily escalated if there wasn't such a large pool of men available to draft, so that just about anyone with pull (and a lot without) were able to avoid service. Cecropia 06:15, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I have no real opinion on that issue, I only bring it up because it is mentioned in the article (first sentence of criticisms section, in fact). Perhaps you could expand on it, in particular defending against it. I was just noting that that particular criticism, valid or not, might also be a good fit to include here rather than elsewhere, and the title could reflect this inclusiveness. Anyway, I'm still stuck for good ideas. And I agree with your concerns. Maybe "George W. Bush's military service controversy" is best after all. Hm.... -- VV 06:27, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, yes, if the Vietnam issue is included, I agree it would better be here than in the main article. Cecropia 06:35, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Figure/timeline, please

As it stands, I find the text really hard to follow, just because there are so many dates and unit numbers involved that it makes your head spin. It would be great to have a timeline as a table, where the rows indicate the dates of various events and alleged events in 1968–1974, the columns indicate the different units/locations at which he supposedly served, and the entries summarize the text in a few words. To help cross-reference the timeline to the text, you could e.g. number the paragraphs. —Steven G. Johnson 23:22, Jun 5, 2004 (UTC)

Flight Physicals

The physical that they are talking about is a flight officers only physical, only required if one is going to stay on flight status. Any flight officer that doesn't take the annual physical for whatever reason, will be removed from flying duty no matter what the reason (including transfer to non-flying duty), it's standard procedure. I am sure even Chuck Yeager received formal orders grounded him from flight status after his retirement from the USAF.

Also mandatory drug testing was no instituted until the 1980's, and it was only mandatory for new enlistees. Existing officers (enlisted, or commissioned) only received drug testing after it was instituted in lots (for example a who unit would be tested), or after an accident.

As said by a guardsmen on a flying forum:

"I hope I don't run for President, because they would go apeshit looking at my flying records:

"He had to get rechecked in the Huey THREE times! He must have been a poor pilot....his medical clearance expired for a MONTH! What physical problems was he hiding? Why didn't he get a physical as required by regulation? He FAILED an evaluation in pilot training, more evidence that he wasn't the great pilot he acts like he is..."

And he said:

"One thing you need to understand to make any sense of this is the Guard is VERY flexible when it comes to your civilian occupation. Generally, if your civilian job takes you away from your unit in such a capacity that you can't make your traditional obligation (ie attend unit drill on the weekends), you can either make it up via other ways, or in some cases you can be exempt from attending altogether.

In short, the Guard can't legally force you to give up your civilian occupation just to serve with a particular unit once a month. If Bush left to work on a political campaign in Alabama, and the campaign is legitimate (and it was), then the Texas Air Guard can't force him to come back to serve.

Bush requested to transfer, and that was denied. It was denied NOT because they wanted Bush to come back to Texas, but because Bush was an F-102 pilot, and he wasn't trained to fulfill any other career field. Plus he requested to transfer to the Air Force Reserve, which is a totally different entity. AFRes is a Federal organization, whereas the TXANG is a state organization. Bush received a direct commission (which is legal and not uncommon in the Guard), but that commission was a state commission with Federal recognition. In other words, he was a commissioned officer in the TXANG, but the federal government recognized his authority as such. However, he did not possess a federal full commission. So he was ineligible to serve as a commissioned officer in the AFRes.

I know, it sounds sketchy to some, but that's the way it works. We had a guy who was direct commissioned in the LA ARNG back in the late 1990s, and after flying helicopters for a while he wanted to fly airplanes. He couldn't go to the Reserves because he held a state commission. He couldn't attend federal OCS/OTS (Officer Candidate School) because you can't hold a commission of any kind prior to entry. So his only choice was to transfer to the LAANG to fly F-15s, which he did."

William Turnipseed

After looking into Turnipseed's comments about the Bush AWOL story, it seems that Turnipseed may have been misquoted, or his statements taken out of context:

Walter Robinson cited retired Turnipseed, of the Alabama Air National Guard, as his source.

But in an interview , Turnipseed states that Robinson's reporting of their conversation was either distorted or based upon his misunderstanding of how the military functioned at the time of Bush's service. For Bush to be "AWOL" or "away without leave," he would have had to have been assigned to a unit and under its command.

Turnipseed states Bush was never ordered to report to the Alabama Air National Guard. He points out that Bush never transferred from the Texas Air National Guard to the Alabama Air National Guard. He remained in the Texas Guard during his stay in Alabama. This was confirmed by the Texas Guard. And Turnipseed added that Bush was never under his command or any other officer in the Alabama Guard.

Turnipseed added that Bush was informed of the drill schedule of the Alabama Guard as a courtesy so he could get credit for drills while in Alabama for his service record in the Texas Guard. There was no compulsory attendance.This was also confirmed by the Texas Guard.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-banal11.html

How should the article be altered to reflet this?

new info

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20040909_831.html

debunk or support. --kizzle 17:37, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That's rehashing of old stuff. Suspension from flying is a normal procedure, see my mention about flight physicals in the talk. If he was no longer available for flying duty (aka no longer in Texas) he doesn't need to report for a flight physical until he is ready to return to his duties.

PPGMD

It's rather more than just that. According to the new information Bush didn't just skip his physical, he "failed to meet standards of the Texas Air National Guard" and refused a direct order. Bryan 00:20, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This new info is possibly based on forged documents - story is now unfolding. Let's not be like CBS and rush to conclusions... TimShell 05:26, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Quite. However, even if the memos turn out to be false, my point remains that this is not just a rehashing of old stuff - it's a hashing of new stuff. Bryan 05:53, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Oh, and I should note that proportional fonts were not a particularly rare innovation on typewriters by then. I found a neat old advertisement for an IBM electric typewriter from 1954 that brags about having it: [1] [2]. Bryan 05:53, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In 1964 I had one of those IBM proportional spacing typwriters for business purposes. In 1968-69 I typed plenty of Army orers. Trust me, we didn't have $1,000 (1968 dollars) IBM electric typewriters to type them on. Plus (ask the man who owned one) the serif typeface was a variant of Century Schoolbook, not Times Roman. And the superscript "th". No way, Jose. Note also that wherever there is a "th" which isn't superscript there is a space between the number and the "th." That was contrary to military style, but it is consistent with trying to srop Microsoft Word from superscripting the "th." Another thing I noticed that noone else has mentioned is that the alledged order for Bush to report for physical said "not later than (NLT)." Why do you think that the military used abbrievations in orders like NLT, UOINDIC, ASAP? To avoid spelling out the phrase. Duh! These memos stink, and they talk about the Republican smear machine. -- Cecropia | Talk 06:06, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That's a very interesting ad, thanks Bryan. It's been reported today that military memorandum's from that time in general all seem to be on the traditional monospace typewriters. Also, doing superscripts with a smaller font was not very available in the 1970s and any typewriter that had such a feature required extra effort for the effect, whereas Microsoft Word does it automatically. We'll see how this news pans out. Jewbacca 05:59, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

The heat may really be on CBS to reveal their sources. Yeah, yeah, I know about journalist privilege to protect sources, but if these are forgeries than CBS may be complicit in election fraud if they stonewall. Fasten your seatbelts, folks. -- Cecropia | Talk 06:11, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

---

This, apart from being excessively detailed, appears incorrect with regards to the current controversy:

Although most typewriters at the time featured what is known as monospace or fixed-width type (similar to the Courier font available on word processors), these features did exist on typewriters available for standard office use in the 1970s: IBM has offered typewriters with proportional spacing since at least 1941 and superscripts and kerning were also available features; one model, the IBM Executive, would not be prohibitively expensive for standard office use and records show that it and the more expensive IBM Selectric Composer (an expensive, professional-quality typesetter) were being "tested" by the military in the 1960s. It is unknown how likely it is whether such a typewriter might have been in Killian's office.

The superscript available on typewriters of the era could not make the characters smaller, just higher, because they were "on a fixed-sized metal wheel": link

Also, the fonts on a selectric don't match the fonts on the memos: link TimShell 23:21, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A Break

It is my experience in stories like these, i.e. forged documents, that we should not comment on them till the dust settles a little. I am sure the documents are forged, and that CBS/60 minutes will be forced to retract and apologize but untill further developments materialize, perhaps we should give this article a rest for a few days. TDC 20:41, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

Barring new info emerging, I agree. Based on my own experience in the military in the same time frame, experience with typewriters and typesetting machines then and since, I can't really conceive of it not being a hoax. I'm saying that honestly and not argumentatively, since the investigation will pass to people with a lot more access to investigative info than we have. Then the question will become: Who created the documents; who brought them to the attention of CBS and how; and that old favorite, who (if anyone) in or connected to the Kerry campaign knew what when. It won't suffice for CBS to just stonewall; they will at least have to answer who gave them the documents, how they were obtained from a man's supposed personal affects without his family knowing, and who the "experts" were that CBS said vetted the documents and said they were genuine, and why they thought so. -- Cecropia | Talk 21:06, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)