Pubdate: Fri, 06 Feb 2004
Source: Salon (US Web)
Copyright: 2004 Salon
Contact:  http://www.salon.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/381
Author: Eric Bohlert, Senior Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/bush.htm (Bush, George)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing)

DID BUSH DROP OUT OF THE NATIONAL GUARD TO AVOID DRUG TESTING?

The Young Pilot Walked Away From His Commitment In 1972 -- The Same Year
The U.s. Military Implemented Random Drug Tests.

One of the persistent riddles surrounding President Bush's
disappearance from the Texas Air National Guard during 1972 and 1973
is the question of why he walked away. Bush was a fully trained pilot
who had undergone a rigorous two-year flight training program that
cost the Pentagon nearly $1 million. And he has told reporters how
important it was to follow in his father's footsteps and to become a
fighter pilot. Yet in April 1972, George W. Bush climbed out of a
military cockpit for the last time. He still had two more years to
serve, but Bush's own discharge papers suggest he may have walked away
from the Guard for good.

It is, of course, possible that Bush had simply had enough of the
Guard and, with the war in Vietnam beginning to wind down, decided
that he would rather do other things. In 1972 he asked to be
transferred to an Alabama unit so he could work on a Senate campaign
for a friend of his father's. But some skeptics have speculated that
Bush might have dropped out to avoid being tested for drugs. Which is
where Air Force Regulation 160-23, also known as the Medical Service
Drug Abuse Testing Program, comes in. The new drug-testing effort was
officially launched by the Air Force on April 21, 1972, following a
Jan. 11, 1972, directive issued by the Department of Defense. That
initiative, in response to increased drug use among soldiers in
Vietnam, instructed the military branches to "establish the
requirement for a systematic drug abuse testing program of all
military personnel on active duty, effective 1 July 1972."

It's true that in 1972 Bush was not on "active" duty: His Texas Guard
unit was never mobilized. But according to Maj. Jeff Washburn, the
chief of the National Guard's substance abuse program, a random
drug-testing program was born out of that regulation and administered
to guardsmen such as Bush. The random tests were unrelated to the
scheduled annual physical exams, such as the one that Bush failed to
take in 1972, a failure that resulted in his grounding.

The 1972 drug-testing program took months, and in some cases years, to
implement at Guard units across the country. And the percentage of
guardsmen tested then was much lower than today's 40 percent rate. But
as of April 1972, Air National guardsmen knew random drug testing was
going to be implemented.

During the 2000 campaign, when Bush's spokesman was asked about the
possibility of Bush facing a drug test back in 1972, the spokesman
told the Times of London that Bush "was not aware of any [military]
changes that required a drug test." Still, at the time when Bush,
perhaps for the first time in his life, faced the prospect of a random
drug test, his military records show he virtually disappeared, failing
for at least one year to report for Guard duty. White House officials
insist that if Bush missed any weekend Guard drills in 1972, he made
up for them during the summer of 1973. If this is true, he would have
been vulnerable to random drug tests during his makeup days. But
again, Bush's own discharge papers fail to conclusively back up his
claim that he performed Guard service in 1973.

"Nobody ever saw him" serving in 1973, notes author James Moore, whose
upcoming book, Bush's War for Re-election," will detail Bush's
military record. "Not a single soul has come forward to say, 'I
remember the summer of '73 when I did Guard training with George Bush,
the future president of the United States.'"

Moore notes that Bush's discharge papers make no reference to service
in 1973. The last entry in Bush's papers are for April 1972. Also, if
Bush had served in 1973, there would have to be an Officer
Effectiveness Rating for that year in his military file. There is not.
Nonetheless, in late 1973 Bush received an honorable discharge in
order to attend Harvard Business School.

During the early stages of his 2000 campaign for president, Bush was
dogged by questions of whether he ever used cocaine or any other
illegal substance when he was younger. Bush refused to fully answer
the question, but in 1999 he did issue a blanket denial insisting he
had not used any illegal drugs during the previous 25 years, or since
1974. Bush refused to specify what "mistakes" he had made before 1974.

Perhaps realizing that explanation pointed reporters toward possible
drug use during his time as a guardsman, Bush insisted he hadn't taken
any drugs while serving in the Texas Air National Guard, between 1968
and 1974. "I never would have done anything to jeopardize myself. I
got airborne and I got on the ground very successfully," he told
reporters on Aug. 19, 1999. But today we know that for his last 18
months in the Guard, from April 72 to late '73, Bush didn't have to
get airborne, because he simply quit flying. Moreover, if Bush in fact
took no drugs at all after 1968, that would mean his drug use, if any,
stopped at age 22 -- an unusual age to swear off recreational
substances for someone with the partying reputation Bush had at that
time.

Unanswered questions continue to swirl around Bush's Guard service in
part because he refuses to release the full contents of his military
records. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake