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Wednesday, September 15, 2004

AFM 35-13

One of the few reasons the alleged Killian memos have anything to do with the issue of how inadeguate was Bush's national guard service (and therefore anything remotely to do with the decision of who to elect) was they the May 4 memo (page 2 here) was a direct order to take a physical which Bush disobeyed. Disobediance of a direct order is more clearly illegal than disobedience of a regulation in a manual (say para 2-10 AFM 35-13)

As I mentioned here linking to Mark Kleiman, before the alleged Killiam memos surfaced, the public record already included a direct order from the General Francis Greenlief (chief natinal guard bureau) "Off will comply with para 2-10 AFM, 35-13."

Amusingly www.mediamatters.com notes that The Washington Times draws attention to this uncontested proof that Bush disobeyed an order by claiming that "There was no AFM 35-13 regulation governing physicals."

Finally in answer to Mark Kleiman's question it is clear that para 2-10 includes the requirement to have a physical and para 2-29m gives commanding officers the authority to ground flyers for non compliance. Greenlief makes two references to AFM 35-13 one of which is an order to Bush "Off will comply with para 2-10, AFM 35-13. Authority: Para 2-29m, AFM 35-13."

The second instructs his superiors to ground him as is shown by another uncontested document.
a September 5, 1972 order, signed by then-Colonel Bobby W. Hodges, commanding officer of Bush's 147th fighter group, stated: In accordance with paragraph 2-29m, AFM 35-13, failure to accomplish annual physical examination, 1st Lt George W. Bush, [blacked out], is suspended from flying status effective date 1 Aug 1972.

Bush clearly did not obey the order from Greenlief, which is also clearly an even more serious matter than not obeying a possible order from Killian and even worse than not having been seen by Turnipseed.

Really the only open question is how many vegetable officers the National Guard had back then and did Bush assault Marshall lettuceblossom ?

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