Why Bush stopped flying remains a mystery By Dave Moniz and Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON - Officers who flew fighter-jet patrols in the early 1970s with George W. Bush describe him as a gung-ho warrior and a gifted pilot who was popular in his Texas Air National Guard unit. This undated photo shows President Bush as a Texas Air National Guard fighter pilot. He sits in the cockpit of an F-102 jet. AFP/Getty Images file
"He was a hell of a good pilot," one of Bush's former commanding officers, Walter B. "Buck" Staudt, recalled in December 2000, shortly after Bush was elected president. In 1971, he rated among the top 10% of fellow pilots. (Related: President Bush's military records)
The positive descriptions of Bush's military service make his sudden decision to quit flying in the spring of 1972 - two years before his pilot commitment was up - all the more puzzling.
Why 1st Lt. Bush stopped flying F-102 fighters remains murky despite the release on Friday of more than 400 pages of records detailing his Guard service from the time he enlisted until he was discharged.
An examination by USA TODAY of all the Bush records released to the public and interviews with pilots, Bush's Guard comrades and military personnel experts suggests Bush was treated differently from most pilots:
- Bush was accepted into pilot school even though he scored in the 25th percentile on a standardized test. The test was given to all prospective pilots and there was no specific score that disqualified a candidate. In addition, Bush had two arrests for college pranks and four traffic offenses before applying for pilot training. Former and current military pilots say it was uncommon for an applicant to be approved for training with such a record.
- There is no record of a formal procedure called a "flying evaluation board," which normally would have been convened once Bush stopped flying in April 1972.
- Bush's records do not show he was given another job in the Air Guard once he quit flying. Pilots and Bush comrades say his records should reflect some type of new duties he was assigned.
Asked for an explanation about why Bush stopped flying, the White House said Bush "served admirably" in the Guard, was given permission by commanders to fulfill his obligations in ways that did not involve flying and was honorably discharged. "President Bush is proud of his service," said Dan Bartlett, communications director.
'Highly unusual' circumstances
Bush, whose father was in Congress at the time, was selected for Air Force pilot training, a highly competitive process, despite the speeding tickets and automobile accidents. He had also been arrested for two incidents considered college pranks: stealing a wreath in New Haven, Conn., and rowdiness at a college football game.
The combination of arrests and traffic violations and the score in the bottom quarter of those who took the pilot exam usually would have cast doubt on most applicants who were applying for pilot training, four former and current National Guard fighter pilots and one former Air Force pilot said. All served in the 1970s.
After Bush stopped flying fighter jets in April 1972 and did not take an annual physical examination required of all pilots, the Air Force should have required a hearing known as a flying evaluation board to determine his fitness to fly. Because the federal government spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to train each pilot, it typically did not allow them to stop flying without a formal proceeding. Bush's records do not mention a flying evaluation board.
The president's advisers and friends have explained that Bush stopped flying because his unit was phasing out the F-102 in 1972. They also say he was not able to get a required flight physical in Alabama, where his records show he was granted permission to train in the fall of 1972. Bartlett said there was no need for a physical exam because Bush stopped flying.
Guard records, however, show pilots in Bush's unit in Texas were still flying the F-102 in 1974, a year after Bush left the Guard.
And Bush would likely have been able to get a flight doctor in Alabama to give him a physical. The White House released records last week showing that Bush had received a dental exam at Dannelly Air National Guard Base in Montgomery, Ala., in January 1973.
Pilots who stop flying are given other Guard duties. In Air Force jargon, it's called DNIF, or Duties Not to Include Flying, which is a written order. There is no indication in Bush's records that his supervisors assigned him another job. Aides say Bush has told them that once he stopped flying, he performed "odds and ends" for commanders whose names he can't recall.
So far just one Alabama Guard member, John Calhoun, has come forward with specific recollections of seeing Bush on duty at Dannelly. He said he saw him eight to 10 times from May to October 1972.
John Richardson, a former Air Guard, Air Force and Air Reserve fighter pilot who served from 1978 to 2001, said regulations for Air Guard pilots during the early 1970s were much more relaxed than they are today. But even by the standards of the time, Richardson said, Bush's selection for pilot training and the circumstances under which he stopped flying are "highly unusual."
When Bush joined the National Guard in 1968, the United States was losing more than 250 troops a week in the Vietnam War. The combat deaths disproportionately excluded the sons of privileged families, some of whom used family connections to enlist in the Guard, which was rarely called for Vietnam duty. At that time, before the all-volunteer military was created, the Pentagon used draftees to fill its need for forces in Vietnam.
When Bush applied for membership in the Texas Air National Guard, it was collegial, almost exclusively white and, like other Air Guard units around the USA, far less professional than today.
"The attitude of a typical unit was more like a flying club than a professional military organization," said Chuck Devlaming, a Florida attorney who served two tours of duty in Vietnam and flew fighters for the Air Force and Air Guard from 1968 to 1988.
Devlaming also said, however, that it would be inaccurate to describe Bush or his comrades as performing safe duty during wartime. Flying a fighter jet anywhere, he said, is inherently dangerous.
The unit that Bush was assigned to in Texas, the 147th Fighter Group, defended the continental USA from enemy bomber attacks. Its pilots flew a hard-to-fly fighter jet called the F-102 Delta Dagger. Because most pilots who flew for the Air Guard were part-time officers who had other jobs, commanders were more lax about records and the whereabouts of pilots than Air Force pilots.
Bush's peers remember him as a good flier who, in his first two years as a pilot in 1970-71, flew his share of missions from Ellington Air Force Base in Houston.
Failed to retake physical
Then something happened.
In the spring of 1972, Bush's records show he stopped showing up for drills at his unit in Texas at about the time he requested a transfer to an Alabama Air National Guard unit. Military records indicate he requested the transfer so he could work for the political campaign of Winton "Red" Blount, a Republican candidate for the Senate and a friend of Bush's father.
Bush's last flight physical, taken in 1971, expired on July 6, 1972. He did not renew it, as required of all military pilots, which is noted in his National Guard records. He was suspended from flying in August for missing the exam.
Richardson, the former Air Guard pilot, said it is not unheard of for Guard pilots to stop flying for months at a time. Some are airline pilots and need to adjust their schedules; others get called away by their employers. But it is rare for a pilot to fail to take a required physical, even one who knew he would be taking a short hiatus from flying, Richardson said.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Thursday that "there was no need for a flight exam" because Bush had moved to Alabama and was to do "equivalent duty" that didn't require him to fly.
A contemporary of Bush, Dean Roome, a former Texas Air National Guard fighter pilot, was Bush's roommate when they were flying in Houston. He said that during the first half of his career, Bush was a model officer. Roome and another Bush contemporary, retired Texas Air National Guard Col. Maurice Udell, vouched for Bush's military service in the fall of 2000 at the request of the Bush campaign after the Boston Globe raised questions about an apparent gap in his service from May 1972 to April 1973.
During a telephone interview with USA TODAY in 2002, Roome described Bush's career as mercurial; the first three years were outstanding, the final two troubled. "You wonder if you know who George Bush is," Roome said.
"I think he digressed after awhile," he said. "In the first half, he was gung-ho. ... Where George failed was to fulfill his obligation as a pilot. It was an irrational time in his life."
Contacted by e-mail last week, Roome pulled back from those comments. He wrote that he admires Bush, that the president met his obligations in the Guard and that he does not want to be seen as attacking him. "Only George W. Bush knows why he was unable to continue flying in the Guard," Roome wrote.