I need to clarify my argument. Bush moved to Alabama to work on a friend's campaign in May of 1972. He asked the Guard to be temporarily at Maxwell Air Force Base. The Guard agreed but there were no planes or pilots there. Bush couldn't learn to be a pilot there.
Albert Lloyd Jr., the Texas Air Guard's personnel director informed the Boston Globe that he was astonished that Bush could do this.The Boston Glove said, "Flight physicals can be administered only by certified Air Force flight surgeons, and some were assigned at the time to Maxwell Air Force Base in Mongomery where Bush was living." Bush didn't take the physical and was grounded.
The commander of the Montgomery unit said that he had no record of Bush ever reporting for duty. Albert Lloyd Jr. said that if Bush had reported it would have been logged, certified and sent to Ellington Air Force Base in Houston. He said that they were unable to find the records that he fulfilled his requirements in Alabama. Bush did not return to his unit at Ellington. The notation dated May 2, 1973 on his performance record noted that "Lieutenant Bush has not been observed at this unit" for the past year.
In May, June and July, '73 Bush did 36 days of duty at Ellington, got permission to end his duty early so he could go to Harvard Business School.
In September 26, 1999, Ben Barnes a former Speaker of the House was quoted as saying in the New York Times that a Houston oilman named Sidney Adger, a friend of Bush Senior asked him to pull strings for W and Barnes contacted the Brigadier General of the Guard.
In Houston, well-connected and well-heeled sons of families got into the 147th Fighter Unit of the Texas Air National Guard that was called the "Champagne Unit".
In the Houston Chronicle in 1994 quotes Bush saying in 1990, "I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor wwas I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes." On his application papers he was unwilling to volunteer for overseas duty.
OK, lets see the evidence to prove the above wrong.