Was this in the book?


One important question concerns a required physical that President Bush missed in 1972. Because of his absence, Mr. Bush lost his flying wings. Air National Guard regulations require that "the local commander who has authority to convene a Flying Evaluation Board will direct an investigation as to why the individual failed to accomplish the medical examination." But there are no records of an investigation or of any requests to complete one.

There are various possible explanations. Perhaps the investigation was never concluded or never forwarded up the chain of command. The regulation says the commander "will" direct an investigation but it does not require the completed report to be forwarded up the chain of command. The commander "may" do so, but it is not required. The report could have been lost at lower levels.

Or perhaps, as journalist James C. Moore suggests in the liberal online magazine Salon, Mr. Bush thought the grounding would end his obligation to the Guard and was happy to let the matter drop. Or maybe, also a Moore speculation, there was a drug or alcohol induced reason for Mr. Bush's absence that he and his superiors wanted to avoid publicizing.

In 2000, Mr. Bush said he missed the physical because his family doctor was in Texas. But, as Time magazine reports, Air Force surgeons must perform the physicals and there was no surgeon shortage in Alabama. In March 2004, the White House said Mr. Bush did not need the physical because he was not flying. Regardless of these speculations, there is no record of any investigation in Mr. Bush's file. As Moore concludes, "A pilot simply did not walk away from all of that training with two years remaining on his tour of duty without a formal explanation as to what happened and why."

As for the highest profile issue, the available files do not clear up the "missing" section of the president's National Guard service. From May 1972 through May 1973 there are highly irregular records for his attendance at required drills, reports Walter Robinson in the Boston Globe. During that time, Mr. Bush had been given permission to move from his home base in Houston to Montgomery, Ala., to work on a Congressional campaign.

Until February of this year, no documents existed to suggest that Mr. Bush performed any duty in either Texas or Alabama during those months. Pay stubs released in February show that he was paid for enough days in Alabama to be judged "satisfactory," but that he did not do any duty between April 16 and October 28, 1972, and that he failed to show up for training in December 1972, February 1973 and March 1973.

There is nothing in the records from that key period beyond those pay stubs – no evaluations from either Mr. Bush's Alabama supervisors or his Texas ones. In fact, Mr. Bush's Texas evaluators wrote on May 2, 1973 that, "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of report. A civilian occupation made it necessary for him to move to Montgomery, Alabama. He cleared this base on 15 May 1972 and has been performing equivalent training in a non-flying status with the 187th Tac Recon Gp, Dannelly ANG Base, Alabama." But no Alabama records exist. And Mr. Bush's official discharge papers include no evidence of any duty between May 1972 and October 1973, when he left the Guard.