Pentagon finds Bush's military payroll records

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Payroll records related to President George W. Bush's service in the Air National Guard three decades ago that the Pentagon said earlier this month were accidentally destroyed now have been located, defence officials say.


Bush's whereabouts during his service as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard in the United States during the Vietnam War have become an election-year issue, with some Democrats accusing him of shirking his duty.


Defence Finance and Accounting Service spokesman Bryan Hubbard said the microfilm payroll records were found in Denver, and blamed a clerical error for the Pentagon's previous failure to find the records.


"We're talking about a manual process for records that are over 30 years old," Hubbard said on Friday.


The Pentagon previously said microfilm payroll records of large numbers of service members, including Bush, were ruined in 1996 and 1997 in a project to save large, brittle rolls of microfilm.


Bush moved to Alabama in May 1972 to work on a political campaign and, he has said, to perform his Guard service there for a year. But other Guard officers have said they had no recollection of seeing him there.


Last February, the White House released hundreds of pages of Bush's military records. Those records did not provide new evidence to place Bush in Alabama during the latter part of 1972, when some Democrats had said he was basically absent without leave.