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Another Look at Bush’s Guard Years

April 19, 2012 5:33 pm by: Ben Philpott

First Lt. George W. Bush in his Texas National Guard uniform. Photo by the U.S. Air ForceFirst Lt. George W. Bush in his Texas National Guard uniform. Photo by the U.S. Air Force

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Most of the country found out about the debate over whether future president George W. Bush was allowed to skip service in Vietnam by joining the Air National Guard during the 2004 presidential campaign. But the story and the efforts to discover the truth started much earlier, in Texas. Ben Philpott of KUT talks with Corpus Christi native Joe Hagan, contributing editor at New York, Rolling Stone and Men’s Health magazines, about his Texas Monthly story updating the investigation into the former president’s Guard career.

It does isolate a period in the missing year, as it came to be known, about four months in which nothing makes sense about his official biography. January 1973 through April 1973, the records in his file show that he had not yet come back to Houston to begin serving in Houston again, they believed him to be in Alabama. His own biography says that he was in Houston, serving in a volunteer program in the inner cities in Houston.

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One Response to “Another Look at Bush’s Guard Years”

  1. On April 19, 2012 at 7:29 pm bcstones responded with... #

    Funny ya didn’t ask the CBS 60 minutes news team, who headed their story…people like Dan Rather & Mary Mapes…who both claim that they every bit of evidence to back up the story but that the CBS authorities didn’t want to get into a fight w/Cheney, Bush & Co. where their license to operate might be jeopardized…btw, Bush wasn’t just missing for those 4 months…he doesn’t show up on ANY attendance sheet…that’s 18months & he got paid for all those missing dates. So not only is he a deserter (by Military regs, anyone AWOL for more than 30 days is a deserter…and the National Guard gets paid for 4 days every weekend drill)…so Bush got paid for over 70 drill periods & was AWOL for each – making his acceptance of pay, totally fraudulent..
    I’ll finish w/ the fact that Bush himself claims ONLY to having “been discharged” honorably, not that he
    “served” Honorably.

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