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The records released by the White House last month fail to answer that question, but they do add one compelling fact to the story -- namely, that Bush was not the only man in his unit to be suspended for failing to take the physical, and that someone else at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston was suspended for exactly the same reason at almost the same time. However, in the documents, the second man's name was inexplicably redacted -- raising new questions.
Throughout the reams of documents released by the administration, standard practice was to allow each National Guardsman's name to be printed in full. Why did the White House make an exception in this case? Why would the Bush administration want to make sure this name in particular did not make it into the public eye?
The White House declined to answer these questions. However, the same document that was redacted by the White House had been the subject of a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Marty Heidt [sic], who was investigating the story before the 2000 presidential election. In the same document that the White House selectively censored for release to the public, the name of the man who was also suspended with Bush is clearly printed. His name: James R. Bath.
Heldt. Marty Heldt.
Anyway, here's the doc which the blogosphere had previously addressed.
