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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
Other information provided to reporters by DFAS also leads to skepticism about the "accidental" nature of the loss of deteriorating microfilm. DFAS said that after the salvage project failed, it made an attempt to find the hard-copy records of the president's payroll history. According to the Pentagon's chief public information officer, C.Y. Talbott, "searches for backup paper copies of the missing records were unsuccessful." But why anyone bothered to look for those paper files is baffling because DFAS has a stated policy of destroying all hard-copy pay records after 30 months.
The missing month of July is important because that is when Bush skipped his flight physical and lost his clearance to fly fighter jets. He was scheduled to show up in Texas for a checkup no later than his birthday, July 6. Spokesman Bartlett has said that Bush did not report for his physical because he had made a decision he was "no longer flying" and because he was doing his duty in Alabama in a "non-flying capacity." Even a cursory examination of pay records for July 1972 would show whether that is true.
Bush's commanders at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston had not heard from him since May 24, 1972, when he asked to be transferred to a non-flying postal unit. After that request was turned down by the Air Reserve Center in Denver, Bush effectively went off the grid until Sept. 5, 1972, when he wrote to Houston and requested to be transferred to the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group. Available Guard records show that his wish was granted on Sept. 19, 1972, the same day Maj. Gen. Francis Greenlief issued an order that permanently grounded the young pilot for failing to show up for his physical. It would be nice to know if Bush picked up a check during any of this time when he was missing his physical, getting grounded, and asking to train in Alabama. He says he did. His staff says he did. But the incomplete records released by the White House in February 2004 don't prove a thing. They only report service points earned and the dates they were awarded. They give no indication of remuneration, information essential to learning how many days Bush actually served.
DFAS said its microfilm salvage project went bad in 1996 and 1997. This, too, suggests certain possibilities as to what prompted the examination of the records from that specific time. The year 1997 was when Texas National Guard state plans officer Bill Burkett said he heard a speakerphone conversation between Gov. Bush's chief of staff, Joe Allbaugh, and Gen. Danny James, commander of the Texas Guard, telling James to "clean up Bush's file and make sure there's nothing embarrassing in there." Burkett said that about 10 days later he witnessed Gen. John Scribner purging the Bush "military personnel records jacket" in the museum at Camp Mabry, the Austin base that serves as the Guard's state headquarters.
Scribner and James have denied Burkett's claims, and George Conn, who Burkett said was present at the time of the purge, no longer supports Burkett's version of events. But Burkett remains unwavering, convinced there was a covert effort to leave enough of a trail to show Bush served during the months in question but not enough evidence to answer questions about fulfilled obligations. If he is correct, it is possible that the 1997 purge of hard-copy records in Austin was part of a plan that included making inquiries to DFAS in Denver to see what was in its files. Is it possible that a call from the office of the governor of Texas caused DFAS to examine Bush's payroll records and "accidentally" destroy them? Isn't it just too convenient that the three mysterious Alabama months are the ones ruined?
In 2000, Bartlett, who was then a spokesman for the Bush campaign, told the Associated Press that he had been to Denver to look at Bush's Guard records and that "there was nothing in there." Bartlett did not say when he went to Colorado, but it seems entirely possible that his trip was part of the planning for Gov. Bush's reelection efforts in 1998 and his possible run for the presidency. That would put Bartlett's trip to Denver in the 1996-97 period when DFAS began its salvage project for the microfilmed payroll records. The issue of Bush's Guard service had been raised by my question to Bush during a televised debate in his run against Gov. Ann Richards in 1994. There was thus ample time for his advisors to make sure the records were sufficiently vague, if they had access and a willingness to tamper. Even though DFAS has said the records of "numerous" other service members were also lost, it strains credibility that a critical part of Bush's record was destroyed.
Nevertheless, the payroll documents would not answer a number of other lingering questions about Bush and the Guard. Was there something more to his grounding than failing to show up for a physical? Were Bush and his drinking buddy, James Bath, involved in any kind of incident involving alcohol or drugs? They were both suspended from flight duties in the same set of orders. That might explain how the hard-partying Bush suddenly ended up working with disadvantaged children in Houston's inner city through Project PULL -- a swift, radical change from his jet pilot persona. Was Project PULL part of a deal to keep any illegal behavior off his record and get Bush on the right track?
