I have corresponded with Paul Lukasiak a number of times as it often
seemed he and I and only a couple other people were the only ones who
bothering to look at Bush's records. I remember seeing Scotty waving
those microfiches in his hand at the podium and thinking, you know, I
should be recording this because I bet there is something in there.
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Stung!
A swarm of new media stories on young George W. Bush's dereliction of
duty pops his heroic-leadership bubble.
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By Eric Boehlert
Sept. 9, 2004 | On Feb. 13, as controversy swirled around President
Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War,
the White House released more than 400 pages of documents on the press
corps, proving, it claimed, that Bush had served honorably and
fulfilled his commitment. The sudden rush of records, often redundant,
jumbled and out of chronological order, generally left reporters
baffled. From Bush's point of view, the document dump was a political
success, as the controversy cooled and the paper trail ran dry.
In retrospect, it's doubtful that even White House aides understood
all the information embedded in the records, specifically the payroll
documents. It's also unlikely they realized how damaging the
information could be when read in the proper context. Seven months
later, the document dump is coming back to haunt the White House,
thanks to researcher Paul Lukasiak, who has spent that time closely
examining the paperwork, and more important, analyzing U.S. Statutory
Law, Department of Defense regulations, and Air Force policies and
procedures of the 1960s and 1970s. As a result, Lukasiak arrived at
the overwhelming conclusion that not only did Bush walk away from his
final two years of military obligation, coming dangerously close to
desertion, but that he attempted to cover up his absenteeism through
swindle and fraud.
Lukasiak's findings, detailed on his Web site the AWOL Project, have
since been bolstered and augmented by independent research by the
Boston Globe and the Associated Press. On Wednesday, CBS News reported
what may be among the most damaging details yet: that Bush's squadron
commander, the late Col. Jerry Killian, complained he was being
pressured by higher-ups to give Bush a favorable evaluation after he
suspended him from flying for failure to take his annual physical
exam. Titled "CYA," Killian's memo concluded, "I'm having trouble
running interference and doing my job."
But for the last several months, Lukasiak has practically had the AWOL
story to himself, as the mainstream media mostly seemed silenced by
the big February document release, the daunting task of decoding
military personnel records, and the repeated refrain from the Bush
White House that the president was honorably discharged. Among the
three most compelling conclusions reached by Lukasiak in his new,
meticulous research, are:
Bush's request to transfer to an Alabama Guard unit in 1972, in order
to work on the Senate campaign of a family friend, Lukasiak found, was
not designed to be temporary, but rather was Bush's attempt to sever
ties completely with the Texas Air National Guard and find a new,
permanent unit in Alabama for which he was ineligible, where he
wouldn't have to do any training during his final two years. His
superiors in Texas essentially covered for Bush's getaway. However,
the Air Reserve Personnel Center (ARPC) in Denver, Colo., which had
final say, uncovered the attempted scam, put an end to it, and
admonished Bush's superiors for endorsing Bush's bogus request. (The
CBS News report shows that the locals were chafing at interference
from "higher-ups" presumably connected to the powerful Bush family).
In the interim, Bush simply ignored his weekend duties for nearly six
straight months, not bothering to show up at military units in either
Alabama or Texas.
The White House has conceded that Bush missed some required weekend
training drills, but insists Bush promptly made up those drills and
earned enough annual credits for an honorable discharge. In fact,
according to Lukasiak's research, based on the procedures in place at
the time requiring that makeup dates be completed within 15 days
before or 30 days after the date of the drill date missed, between
half and two-thirds of the points credited to Bush for substitute
training were fraudulent. Some of the points credited to Bush were
"earned" nine weeks beyond the date of the missed drill. According to
Air Force policy, Bush could not have received permission for
substitute training that far outside the accepted parameters. The
evidence is also overwhelming that Bush failed to get authorization
for substitute training in advance, suggesting the points were awarded
by the Texas Air National Guard retroactively and without any
supporting paperwork. The fraudulent points are key, because without
them Bush would have fallen far short of meeting his annual
obligation, which meant he should have been
