Did I ever tell you about getting kicked out of the Air Force Reserve?

The Kerryites are getting desperate. Now we're back to talking about issues that got resolved to any thinking person's satisfaction 4 years ago. Apparently George Bush broke with the one weekend a month, every month, routine for a little while towards the end of his hitch in the Air National Guard. He was absent for good reasons, made the time up later, and was honorably discharged from the Guard. Byron York looked into that and explained it for anyone with 10 minutes to do a little reading back in February: Bush and the National Guard: Case Closed.

I know a little bit myself about how paperwork kept by Guard and Reserve units can fail to tell the whole story in a manner an outsider could understand. In April of 1974 I was released from active duty in the Air Force and signed on, voluntarily, with an Air Force Reserve unit, where I was expected to show up for one weekend a month and two weeks every summer. I attended training assemblies as scheduled, including a two week stint "deployed" to Tinker Air Force Base, for about 9 months. In January of 1975 I went to my Commanding Officer, explained that I was working full time and attending school full time, and that I needed my weekend, every weekend, available to catch up on my sleep. He instructed my to have his Admin NCO fill out the proper forms to voluntarily discharge me from the Reserves. The Admin NCO expressed his surprise that I was actually telling him in advance that I wanted to change my status. "Usually guys just quit showing up and we kick them out after 3 months." He informed me he knew how to handle kicking me out for not showing up but didn't even know what form to use to discharge me voluntarily. I asked him to try to find out and when he still didn't know 2 months later I thanked my CO for understanding and never went back. Eventually I received a letter saying I'd been kicked out of the Reserves, and 6 years after I entered active duty I received another letter verifying that I'd completed my obligation to the Air Force. In 1984 the FBI and NSA approved me for a Top Secret/SCI security clearance, so I have to suspect that experiences like mine weren't all that rare.

So 30 years after the fact the government is having trouble finding enough documentation to describe in excruciating detail exactly how George W. Bush spent every moment of his last few months in the Air National Guard. Gasp! Color me shocked! Let's fire the President and replace him with "Vietnam hero" Jean Fraud Kerry. Idiots.