Questions Over Bush Guard Records
Records released by the White House show that President Bush has "satisfactory years" during his last two years in the National Guard, but also reflect gaps in the record.
The Air National Guard forms and pay records released by the White House show are the 82 days between January 1972 and July 1973 on which First Lieutenant George Bush showed up and was paid for his National Guard service.
The problem for the White House is that the documents do not actually prove Mr. Bush showed up on the dates for which he was paid. And so far no one has come forward to say that they served with him, leaving the president on the defensive, CBS News White House Correspondent Bill Plante.
Asked if the White House could produce a person who recalls serving with the president, spokesman Scott McClellan said only, "All the information that we have we shared with you in 2000, that was relevant to this issue. And all the additional information that has come to our attention we have shared with you."
In addition, the documents show no record of any service from May to September 1972 and just six days in October and November of that year, when Mr. Bush was in Alabama, working on a senate campaign.
The pay records do not say where he served on those days, or what he did. But experts said Mr. Bush could have met his yearly service requirements even if there were some months in which he did not attend a drill.
In September of 1972, Mr. Bush was suspended from flying because he had not completed his annual medical exam.
The president's record is blank again from November 1972 until January 1973, when White House officials say Mr. Bush was back in Houston. Then it goes blank again in February and March 1973.
In May of 1973, Mr. Bush's officer effectiveness report, obtained outside the White House, says he was "not observed" at the Texas National Guard.
Asked about those gaps in the record, McClellan said: "The President recalls serving both when he was in Texas and when he was in Alabama. And that is what I can tell you."
"The President spent some of that time in Texas. He was a member of the Texas Air National Guard, and he was given permission, on a temporary basis, to perform equivalent duty while he was in Alabama," McClellan added. "And he performed that duty. And the payroll records, that I think are very important for the public to have, clearly reflect that he served."
From May until the end of July 1973, Mr. Bush reported often, gaining the required credit for an honorable discharge. He left the Guard early to attend Harvard Business School.
The president's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, told the CBS News Early Show the president has answered the questions about his service.
"The president is proud of his National Guard service. His provided the pay stubs, the points that he received for retirement. He's made an accounting and I think what the American people want to know is that this is a person who is capable as a commander-in-chief," Rice said.
"He is showing that he can lead the world and lead the United States in a time of peril and that is what the American people want to know," she added.
The records, some being released for the first time, didn't satisfy Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe. He argued that the payroll and summary service records posed more questions than they answered.
"The fact remains that there is still no evidence that George W. Bush showed up for duty as ordered while in Alabama," McAuliffe said.
Democrats have been raising questions again about Mr. Bush's service, especially since Vietnam War veteran John Kerry has taken the lead to become Mr. Bush's opponent in the upcoming presidential election.
McAuliffe helped resurrect long-running questions about Mr. Bush's National Guard record earlier this month when he charged that the president had been "AWOL," or absent without leave during his time in Alabama.
Kerry stayed silent on the subject Tuesday.
"I just don't have any comment on it," he told reporters between campaign stops in Tennessee and Virginia. "It's not an issue that I chose to create. It's not my record that's at issue and I don't have any questions about it."
In a memo included in the packet of payroll and other records, retired Lt. Col. Albert Lloyd Jr., former personnel director of the Texas Air National Guard, stood behind Mr. Bush's service record. He wrote that the records show Bush had "satisfactory years" for the period of 1972-73 and 1973-74 "which proves that he completed his military obligation in a satisfactory manner."
But Lloyd told the Boston Globe that while Mr. Bush met the minimum requirement for retirement credit, he may have missed the minimum requirement for training.
"Should he have done more? Yes, he should have," the Globe quoted Lloyd as saying. "Did he have to? No."
Retired Brig. Gen. William Turnipseed, who commanded the 187th Tactical Recon Group in Montgomery, told The Associated Press in May 2000 that he did not recall Bush reporting for duty there. "To my knowledge, he never showed up," Turnipseed said then.
On Tuesday, he told the AP that he was not sure whether he was even on the base during the time Mr. Bush was assigned there. Moreover, he said: "In 1972, I didn't even know he was supposed to come. I didn't know that until 2000. I'm not saying that he wasn't there. If he said he was there, I believe it. I don't remember seeing him."