Alabama Air National Guard Veteran Says President Wasn’t There: Texans for Truth Seeks to Reopen Scrutiny of President’s Service Record
(AUSTIN, TEXAS)— Texans for Truth launched a campaign this week seeking to uncover the answers to persistent questions surrounding President George W. Bush’s absence from his National Guard service while in Alabama. According to a new television commercial unveiled by the campaign on Wednesday, September 8, Bush was not to be found at the Alabama air base where he claims to have served in 1972.
"It would have been impossible to be unseen in a unit of that size," said Bob Mintz, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Alabama Air National Guard, who served at the Montgomery, Alabama air base and in the same unit as Bush allegedly served in 1972. Mintz is featured in a TV ad that helped kick off the campaign. The ad, paid for by online donations, will begin airing Monday in swing state communities who’ve sustained the most losses in Iraq.
"Yesterday, America lost its thousandth soldier in Iraq," said Glenn Smith, Executive Director of Texans for Truth. "We have a commander in chief who dodged his own military duty during Vietnam. We think the husbands, wives, mothers and fathers of these soldiers deserve to know the truth about George W. Bush.
According to Mintz, who was only one of a handful of young, unmarried men in his unit, he searched actively for Bush because he was eager to make friends. Bush would have been one of a few junior lieutenants at the base, which had a total of 50 to 60 pilots. Yet for the entire year that Bush claims he was on the base, Mintz never saw nor heard of Bush, nor did any other veterans interviewed by the press. This was highly unusual given that all the pilots on the base knew each other, most pilots trained together for at least two weeks out of the year and it was a small base.
"Was George W. Bush AWOL in Alabama? America deserves to know," said Smith. "None of his superiors remember him. Bush himself has said he has no specific recollections of serving. His military records have suspiciously disappeared and dozens of veterans from his unit say they’ve never seen hide nor hair of him. The evidence suggests he may have dodged his military responsibilities during Vietnam. We’re urging him to stop dodging the truth."
The TV ad and campaign come just days ahead of a “60 Minutes” exposé featuring Former Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes admitting he helped President Bush evade service in Vietnam by getting into the Texas Air National Guard.
Mintz joins 16 retired officers, pilots and senior enlisted men who served in Bush’s unit in 1972 who say they simply do not recall seeing Bush at the air base, according to a The New York Times story published earlier this year. The ad campaign and Mintz’s public appearances promise to spur renewed scrutiny of Bush’s Vietnam era service record.
Texans for Truth announced an initial ad buy of $110,000—raised primarily by online donations from Drive Democracy and Texas MoveOn.org members. The ad buy will take place in the following markets:
Starting Monday, the ad will appear on the following cable stations in these markets:
Texans for Truth is the 527 arm of DriveDemocracy, a 20,000-member Texas-based grassroots organization that seeks to increase political participation by helping ordinary people make their voices heard in politics.