There seem to be a great many people on the left side of the ideological spectrum who are all hot and bothered by the issue of GWB's National Guard attendance or non attendance. As many former guardsmen have attested, record keeping is and has never been the Guard's strong suit. But how bad is that record keeping? Nobody's bothered to find out. If there exists some actual disinterested researchers out there instead of partisan spinners in white lab coats, here's one method.
Do a randomized study of the quality level of record keeping. Find 300-500 randomly picked guardsmen of that era and geographic region who did some of their duty in other units and figure out how much of their paperwork is still available after all these decades. If you can't verify a good sized chunk of them, it's a good bet that GWB's guard records are just one in a long line of casualties of military clerk foul ups. If everybody else checks out, the stories of lost records would look a lot less credible.
Anybody want to lay odds nobody ever bothers to do the study?
Posted by TMLutas at February 5, 2004 08:03 AM