This one goes out to a newly returned friend...

President Bush photographed wearing Air Force award he never earned
One Air Force office confirms story, but Air Force public affairs office pleads ignorance, gives out White House comment line.
By John Byrne | Raw Story Editor

A closer examination of a photograph included in President George W. Bush’s Air Force records, released by the White House earlier this year, shows then-Second Lieutenant Bush wearing an Air Force Outstanding Unit Award which he never earned.

Additionally, Lieutenant Bush would not have been authorized to wear the ribbon temporarily, the Air Force Personnel Center said in an email.

“There isn’t a ‘temporary’ wear of AF Outstanding Unit Awards for AF personnel,” the Air Force Personnel Center stated.

“I’ve never heard of temporary wear,” added Assistant Reagan Defense Secretary for Manpower, Reserve Affairs, Installations and Logistics Lawrence J. Korb, whose job included overseeing the Air Force Reserves from 1981-1985, in a telephone interview Wednesday. “The unit didn’t get this until 1975.”

The Air Force Public Affairs office tried to answer an inquiry, but went silent and said they just didn’t have enough information to answer after they heard the query was on President Bush. They deferred comment to the White House, and supplied the White House comment phone line.

RAW STORY reached the White House Press Office through the main switchboard, and a spokeswoman said they would look into it and return the call as soon as possible.

“We’re very short staffed this week,” she said, referring to the Republican National Convention.

The London-based newspaper The Telegraph sought comment on the issue Sunday but received no response.

The Air Force Historical Research Service Organization confirmed that the 147th Fighter Intercept Group and the 111th Fighter Intercept Squadron received an Air Force Outstanding Unit Award for the time period of 1965-1966, two years before Bush joined the service.

The Air Force also said both units received the Outstanding Unit Award in 1975. Bush was discharged from his Texas Guard unit on Oct. 1, 1973.

Between these dates, the Air Force said Wednesday, there are “no additional awards.”

More importantly, however, the above photograph had to have been taken some time between his qualifying as a pilot–since he is wearing his pilots’ wings–on November 26, 1969 and his promotion to First Lieutenant on November 7, 1970, since he is listed as a Second Lieutenant (see photograph below).

Bush earned his pilots’ wings on Nov. 29, 1969, according to his White House military biography.

His biography does not list that he was awarded the Air Force Oustanding Unit Award.

American media, having focused for more than three weeks on Swift Boat veterans’ attacks on Sen. John Kerry’s Vietnam service, has yet to report the story. It has, however, appeared in the The Telegraph, which carried a brief piece on the charges Aug. 29.

Walt Starr, a researcher, first reported the story in the popular liberal forum, Democratic Underground, on Aug. 23.

Punishment for wearing an award one hasn’t earned is punishable by bad-conduct discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and/or confinement for 6 months under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

DEVELOPING…. Keep your eye on the main Raw Story page for updates.

Update:  While I do agree that the source is rather radical, I don't think that it reflects on the facts that A) the image above was released by the Bush campaign and B) Bush is shown wearing a medal he didn't earn.  Of course, he also once claimed to have been active Air Force when in reality he was just training there for the Guard, so we know he gets confused about those things easily.

Update 2:  One intrepid reader points out that The Air Force Distinguished Flying medal or The Organizational Excellence Award might be what Bush is wearing, as it's a black and white photo and they look similar.

The Air Force Distinguished Flying medal

The Organizational Excellence Award

While those are similar, look at a close up of the mystery Bush award and the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award:

While in black and white, the award worn by Bush is clearly light color | white | dark color | white | light color | white | dark color | white | light color.  This would not match the Organizational Excellence Award, which is the opposite in terms of light color / dark color.

The black and white award would also appear to have the white stripes be of uniform width.  This would not match the Distinguished Flying medal as is inner stripes are have as narrow as its outer stripes.

The last question brought up is:  why does this matter?  Because I hear from people all the time about how "John Kerry didn't deserve his purple hearts", that "John Kerry wounded himself to get a purple heart", or that "one of John Kerry's medals was only turned in when he did the paperwork".  And then I see those on TV at the Republican National Convention passing out purple bandaids, which stands in mockery of not just Kerry (who still carries shrapnel from Vietnam in his body), but many other veterans as well.

If Bush supporters want to say that what happened during the Vietnam era doesn't matter, then they need to live by that as well.  It seems to me that they want it both ways.