Mods,
Re the length of this post (too many paragraphs): This article, from a Josh Marshall TPM link, includes info on ways to document National Guard service.
Please let me know if I need to edit for length, in order to follow DU rules. Thanks!
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Thoughts on President Bush and the National Guard
Pay records, tax records and retirement records could document the service in question
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1) Attendance records. Guard units aren't like active units, in that they meet on the weekends (or weeknights) on a quasi-regular basis, plus two weeks during the summer. They're part-time units, and the only way they know their readiness is to see their personnel on a regular basis.
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2) Pay Records. If you attend drill, you get paid by Uncle Sam. This is a fundamental principle in the reserves -- federal and state National Guard -- that is true for a variety of reasons.
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3) Retirement Points. If the President attended drill during the summer of 1972, he would have received retirement points for those drill dates.
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4) Income Tax Records. As stated in #1 and #2 above, the President's drill attendance would have almost surely been paid attendance.
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5) DD 214. (Thanks to Mark Kleiman for the reminder on this one) The DD 214 form is given to every soldier when he/she leaves the service as the official legal record of military service rendered.
much, much more...
http://tinyurl.com/2zhb4