And for his next act...
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=14845snip
But let's be tolerant. After all, things disappear. Didn't the president effectively disappear leaving the country in the hands of Rudy Guiliani for fully twelve hours immediately following the Word Trade Center collapse? Didn't the president's stock transaction records disappear from Harken Energy?5 Didn't the federal budget surplus disappear? Didn't Osama bin Laden disappear? Didn't Afghanistan disappear? Didn't Saddam Hussein disappear until the Kurds found him? Didn't the weapons of mass destruction disappear? Didn't 4 million American jobs disappear? Didn't your 2000 vote disappear? Things disappear.
Since Bush's affinity for the military uniform seems to be a recent and apparently acquired taste, all we know of Bush the Lesser's abbreviated military career is this: He'd been trained as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard. Then he flew around Texas for awhile looking for Viet Cong, no doubt, then he requested a transfer to the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama (Alabama?). That transfer was approved by Bush's Texas superiors as well as his would-be Alabama Commander, Lt. Colonel Reese R. Bricken. But, it was rejected by the top brass. It's merely speculation of course, but perhaps that rejection occurred because the top brass knew (as I'm sure Dub'ya and his Texas ANG cronies did) that the dashing-sounding 9921st Squadron was in reality a post office with no pilots, and no planes. Not surprisingly, that's when things get foggy. Jet Jockey George disappears from the historical records and from the memory of his contemporaries. There is no record of his ever flying again. He does not show up to take his required flight physical (which included a drug and alcohol test) in August 1972 and is grounded in absentia. Separate orders show him being assigned to another Alabama unit, the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group in Montgomery. He never showed up there either, according to the man to whom he was ordered to report, his commander, General William Tunipseed (USAF Ret.). That was May, 1972. Seven months later, back at Ellington Air Force Base in Texas, his original squadron, Bush's two superior officers were unable to complete his annual evaluation covering the year from May 1, 1972 to April 30, 1973 because, "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of this report." Both superior officers are now dead. But the report lives on. Further, Ellington's top personnel officer at the time, retired Colonel Rufus G. Martin, said he had believed that First Lieutenant Bush completed his final year of service in Alabama. Doing what? Secretly delivering mail?
In fact, there is no record or memory of his ever doing anything Air Force like again in Texas or Alabama or anyplace else for an entire year, until 30 years to the day before his carrier stunt on the USS Abraham Lincoln. May 1, 1973 is when he showed up again, back in Texas. May Day 1973.
Dub'ya's military records for the period between 1 May 72 and 1 May 73 are either missing or are not available for "administrative reasons," which probably means they're missing. Further, his commanders in both the Ellington and Montgomery units do not remember ever so much as seeing Jet Jockey George during the entire time between May Day 1972, and May Day 1973. But, so be it. Nobody remembers, and maybe disappearing from duty is considered to be okay when your country is at war if your father is a congressman. I'll pretend to accept that.
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