As I posted earlier, this topic of where Bush was when he was supposed to be serving in the National Guard was an in-depth subject covered by, I believe, Frontline.

Today I received this an email of this article that quotes a witness who verified Bush was a "no-show" when he was supposed to be drilling at an Alabama base.
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BUSH A NO-SHOW AT ALABAMA BASE, SAYS MEMPHIAN

FedEx Pilot Bob Mintz, backed up by a Carolina colleague, recalls no Dubya at
Dannelly AFB in 1972.

Jackson Baker | 2/12/2004

http://www.memphisflyer.com/content.asp?ID=5480&ArticleID=2

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Copyright 2004 The Memphis Flyer MEMPHIS â€" Two members of the Air National
Guard unit that President George W. Bush allegedly served with as a young
Guard
flyer in 1972 had been told to expect him and were on the lookout for him. He
never showed, however; of that both Bob Mintz and Paul Bishop are certain.


The issue of Bush’s presence in 1972 at Dannelly Air National Guard base
in
Montgomery, Alabama â€" or the lack of it â€" has become an issue in the 2004
presidential campaign.


Recalls Memphian Mintz, now 63: “I remember that I heard someone was
coming
to drill with us from Texas. And it was implied that it was somebody with
political influence. I was a young bachelor then. I was looking for somebody
to
prowl around with.â€* But, says Mintz, that “somebodyâ€* -- better known to
the
world now as the president of the United States -- never showed up at
Dannelly in
1972. Nor in 1973, nor at any time that Mintz, a FedEx pilot now and an
Eastern Airlines pilot then, when he was a reserve first lieutenant at
Dannelly,
can remember.


“And I was looking for him,â€* repeated Mintz, who said that he assumed
that
Bush “changed his mind and went somewhere elseâ€* to do his substitute
drill. It
was not “somewhere else,â€* however, but the 187th Air National Guard
Tactical
squadron at Dannelly to which the young Texas flyer had requested transfer
from his regular Texas unit â€" the reason being Bush’s wish to work in
Alabama
on the ultimately unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign of family friend Winton
"Red" Blount.


It is the 187th, Mintz’s unit, which was cited, during the 2000
presidential
campaign, as the place where Bush completed his military obligation. And it
is the 187th that the White House continues to contend that Bush belonged to
â€"
as recently as this week, when presidential spokesman Scott McClellan
released
payroll records and, later, evidence suggesting that Bush’s dental records
might be on file at Dannelly.


“There’s no way we wouldn’t have noticed a strange rooster in the
henhouse,
especially since we were looking for him,â€* insists Mintz, who has pored
over
documents relating to the matter now making their way around the Internet.
One
of these is a piece of correspondence addressed to the 187th’s commanding
officer, then Lt. Col. William Turnipseed, concerning Bush’s redeployment.


Mintz remembers a good deal of base scuttlebutt at the time about the letter,
which clearly identifies Bush as the transferring party. “It couldn’t be
anybody else. No one ever did that again, as far as I know.â€* In any case,
he is
certain that nobody else in that time frame, 1972-73, requested such a
transfer
into Dannelly.


Mintz, who at one time was a registered Republican and in recent years has
cast votes in presidential elections for independent Ross Perot and Democrat
Al
Gore, confesses to “a negative reactionâ€* to what he sees as out-and-out
dissembling on President Bush’s part. “You don’t do that as an
officer, you don’t
do that as a pilot, you don’t do it as an important person, and you
don’t do
it as a citizen. This guy’s got a lot of nerve.â€*


Though some accounts reckon the total personnel component of the 187th as
consisting of several hundred, the actual flying squadron â€" that to which
Bush
was reassigned â€" numbered only “25 to 30 pilots,â€* Mintz said.
“There’s no
doubt. I would have heard of him, seen him, whatever.â€* Even if Bush, who
was
trained on a slightly different aircraft than the F4 Phantom jets flown by
the
squadron, opted not to fly with the unit, he would have had to encounter the
rest
of the flying personnel at some point, in non-flying formations or drills.
“And if he did any flying at all, on whatever kind of craft, that would
have
involved a great number of supportive personnel. It takes a lot of people to
get
a plane into the air. But nobody I can think of remembers him.


“I talked to one of my buddies the other day and asked if he could
remember
Bush at drill at any time, and he said, ‘Naw, ol’ George wasn’t
there. And he
wasn’t at the Pit, either.’â€*


The “Pitâ€* was The Snake Pit, a nearby bistro where the squadron’s
pilots
would gather for frequent after-hours revelry. And the buddy was Bishop, then
a
lieutenant at Dannelly and now a pilot for Kalitta, a charter airline that in
recent months has been flying war materiel into the Iraq Theater of
Operations.


“I never saw hide nor hair of Mr. Bush,â€* confirms Bishop, who now lives
in
Goldsboro, N.C., is a veteran of Gulf War I and, as a Kalitta pilot, has
himself flown frequent supply missions into military facilities at Kuwait.
"In
fact," he quips, mindful of the current political frame of reference, "I saw
more
of Al Sharpton at the base than I did of George W. Bush."


Bishop voted for Bush in 2000 and believes that the Iraq war has served some
useful purposes â€" citing, as the White House does, disarmament actions
since
pursued by Libyan president Moammar Khadaffi â€" but he is disgruntled both
about
aspects of the war and about what he sees as Bush’s lack of truthfulness
about his military record.


“I think a commander-in-chief who sends his men off to war ought to be a
veteran who has seen the sting of battle,â€* Bishop says. “In Iraq: we have
a
bunch of great soldiers, but they are not policemen. I don’t think he [the
president] was well advised; right now it’s costing us an American life a
day. I’m
not a peacenik, but what really bothers me is that of the 500 or so that
we’ve
lost almost 80 of them were reservists. We’ve got an over-extended Guard
and
reserve.â€*


Part of the problem, Bishop thinks, is a disconnect resulting from the
president’s own inexperience with combat operations. And he is well beyond
annoyed
at the White House’s persistent claims that Bush did indeed serve time at
Dannelly. Bishop didn’t pay much attention to the claim when candidate
Bush first
offered it in 2000. But he did after the second Iraq war started and the
issue
came front and center.


“It bothered me that he wouldn’t ‘fess up and say, Okay, guys, I cut
out
when the rest of you did your time. He shouldn’t have tried to dance
around the
subject. I take great exception to that. I spent 39 years defending my
country.â€*


Like his old comrade Mintz, Bishop was a pilot for Eastern Airlines during
their reserve service in 1972 at Dannelly. Mintz then lived in Montgomery;
Bishop commuted from Atlanta, a two-hour drive away. Mintz and Bishop retired
from
the Guard with the ranks of lieutenant colonel and colonel, respectively.


Bishop, especially, is bitter about the fate of Eastern, which went bankrupt
during the administration of President George H.W. Bush, the current
incumbent’s father. “I watched my company dissolve under his
policies.â€* Both Bushes
were “children of privilege,â€* unlike himself and Mintz.


“Our fathers were poor dirt farmers. We would not have been given the same
considerations he and his father were,â€* says Bishop, who maintains that,
just as
the junior Bush used family and political influence to jump himself ahead of
500 other flight training applicants, the senior Bush "apparently" did, too,
when he became a naval aviator during World War Two. “I applaud him for
volunteering, but he should have waited his turn like everybody else.â€*


But, says Bishop, “At least I can give him credit for serving his
country.â€*
That is more, he suggested, than can be granted the younger Bush.


Would he consider voting for the president’s reelection? “Naw, this
goes to
an integrity issue. I like either [John] Kerry or [John] Edwards better.â€*
And
who would Mintz be voting for? “Not for any Texas politicians,â€* was the
Memphian’s sardonic answer.

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