He added that Bush always appeared in uniform and "there was some resentment" from other squadron members, who did not like a man coming from Texas and talking Republican politics.
"We had lunch sometimes, and he told me he was working pretty heavily in the campaign, at least long hours," Calhoun said. "I asked him if he was going to be a politician and he said, 'I don't know. Probably.' "
Calhoun conceded that 30 years was a long time, but he stuck to his recollections of Bush being there for weekend duty. However, the pay sheets cover only two weekends, plus a Monday and Tuesday.
Blount lost the election. His son, Winton Blount III, who also worked on the campaign, recalled Bush as an engaging, energetic presence. But he said Bush's Guard duty at the same time just was "not the kind of thing people generally would have been aware of."
He added, "There was generally some knowledge that he had some Guard duty to do, that he was a jet pilot."
Bush wouldn't have had to account for his time away from the campaign, if he took any. Blount said he himself was not a full-time presence in the campaign because he was married and working as a businessman in Miami and traveling back to Alabama regularly to pitch in.
Another campaign aide, Ruth Noble Groom, said Bush was away from Montgomery a lot during that period because he was responsible for organizing Blount committees in counties all over Alabama.
A girlfriend of Bush's, Emily Marks Curtis, who also worked on the Senate campaign , said she never saw him in uniform and he never took her to the base. Still, she remembered Bush returning to Alabama after the election for more Guard duty.
"Why else would he come back to Montgomery?" she said, apparently referring to the mid-November pay sheet dates. "That's what he did while he was there."
He returned to Houston but apparently was seldom seen there either, still in a nonflying status. In May 1973, Harris wrote in the pilot's annual report that "Bush has not been observed at this unit" during the last year.
He left the Guard in September 1973, en route to Harvard Business School. He was clocked out eight months early, and given an honorable discharge, all of which Texas officials defend as acceptable since he had accrued enough duty points to fulfill his obligation.
In asking for the early discharge, Bush was succinct, writing to his superiors little more than, "I have enjoyed my association" with the Guard.
