First, let me plug what I am working on: an interactive calendar holding related documents about Bush in 1972. See:
http://ofb.net/~bushsrMy site requires the SVG viewer because I wanted to make it interactive but open source. (On a related note, I need volunteers to do a day's research in Alabama, Washington D.C., Colorado, and Texas near Ellington AFB.)
The most interesting article I have read is by Joseph Nobles, who blogs as boloboffin. Here is a link to his explanation of how it is possible to account for every Bush Service Day of Jan 1972-May 1973:
http://boloboffin.blogspot.com/2004_07_04_boloboffin_archive.html#108943223162665302It is thanks to him that I learned how to collect the data for my web site.
Paul Lukasiak is the author of "The Awol Project" at:
http://www.glcq.com/Some of his most interesting information in terms of records forensics is in his dissection of the pay records:
http://www.glcq.com/understanding_payroll.htmMartin Heldt of Clinton, IA is the citizen who obtained most of the documents under FOIA. I have spoken to him on the telephone and believe that all his documents are authentic as he received them:
http://users.cis.net/coldfeet/In my opinion, trying to pin a legal definition of what was going on with Bush ("desertion", "AWOL", etc.) is kind of pointless. He apparently had the tacit approval of some higher-ups who were in on the whole scheme for him.
In my opinion, the question is: What interrupted his service that led to all this need for covering up the gap?