http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=716&e=13&u=/nm/20040211/ts_nm/campaign_bush_dcBush's Vietnam-Era Military Records Show Gaps
By Randall Mikkelsen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush was absent for long periods of his final two years of National Guard duty but met service requirements, according to new records cited by the White House in an effort to refute accusations he shirked Vietnam <snip>
The documents show long gaps in Bush's Guard service, from May through late October 1972, and mid-January through early April 1973.
Bush spent part of the fall of 1972 working on a political campaign in Alabama, but he performed "equivalent duty" while out of Texas, McClellan said.
The records show Bush earned service points and was paid for duty in late October and November of 1972, but officials could not specify which dates he served in Alabama. They also could not explain the gap in 1973. <snip>
McClellan said the payroll records were proof of Bush's service.But Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, writing of his own Guard service, said: "For two years or so, I played a perfectly legal form of hooky. To show you what a mess the Guard was at the time, I even got paid for all the meetings I missed."