There are ten thousand bloggers looking at the Bush documents and finding the faults with them but I can’t resist! I downloaded the PDF from FoxNews and have given them the once over. Keep in mind, I spent 22 years in the US Air Force. I wasn’t there in ’72 but I was around for a while. Here are my observations:

1. There weren’t many typewriters that could type in Times New Roman back then. It wasn’t impossible but most of them used
Courier.

2. The one dated 4 May 1972 begins with “MEMORANDUM FOR” but that wasn’t introduced until the 1990s. Prior to that the standard format was “FROM: SUBJECT: TO:” and the subject would have “Memorandum for” in it.

3. On paragraph 2 of that same document the “th” of 111th F.L.S. is superscript. There weren’t ANY typewriters that could do that back then! Also, there shouldn’t be periods between the letters.

4. Col Killian’s signature block is wrong. It should be “JERRY B. KILLIAN, Lt Col, USAFR” or something like that.

5. The 19 May 1972 memo is “Memo for file”. This may have been a personal document and so the format could be whatever he wanted. Still, the standard way of doing it would have been “SUBJECT: Memorandum for Record”

6. The phrase “in a flight status” in the second paragraph of that same memo is very weird. Typically it is “remain in flight status”, no indefinite article.

7. The 1 Aug 72 letter is a memo for record. Suspension of flight status is a Very Big Deal and would go on something much more formal that an MFR. Even if it were an MRF that got attached to another formal letter, it should have been on letter head.

8. Paragraph 3 has a weird typo. It says “9921 st Air Reserve” and “147 th Ftr”. There shouldn’t be a space there unless, of course, you are trying to make sure that Word doesn’t make it into a superscript (see 3 above).

9. Also in paragraph 3 is the correct phrase “flight physical” had been used differently in the other memos. This is not necessarily an error by the forger, but it seems odd.

10. The 18 Aug memo has the same superscript problem. Its wording seems very strange too. Why file a memo like this? The tone is very personal but back then a commander would have written it on paper and then given it to a secretary to type up. I just can’t imagine a commander filing a memo like this. I suppose it is possible but I would expect it to be a little more polished. Maybe I’m wrong.

These documents smack of forgery to me. They look phony, especially the fact that they are Times New Roman and the superscript. The lack of letterhead is very suspicious too. My judgment: fake. Did Michael Moore have anything to do with this?
(Kidding!)