Military Records

A war lingers in Iraq; the economy falters at home. But since Sunday, the 2008 presidential race seems to have been consumed by what a retired general said on a television talk show. Retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation" and questioned whether famed war hero John McCain had the executive experience to be commander in chief.

John McCain was training in his AD-6 Skyraider on an overcast Texas morning in 1960 when he slammed into Corpus Christi Bay and sheared the skin off his plane's wings. McCain recounted the accident decades later in his autobiography. "The engine quit while I was practicing landings," he wrote. But an investigation board at the Naval Aviation Safety Center found no evidence of engine failure.

Renewing a debate that raged through much of the 2004 presidential race, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) on Friday accepted Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens' offer to pay $1 million to anyone who can disprove allegations by veterans who disparaged Kerry's Vietnam War record.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mountjoy has claimed in his campaign biography that he served aboard the battleship Missouri during the Korean War, but his military record shows no assignment on the famous vessel, The Times has found. In an interview Thursday, Mountjoy acknowledged that he did not serve on the Missouri. Last week, when first asked about his record, he said his Missouri stint had been "very brief" and that he otherwise served on the U.S.

Melissa MacDougal's junior high project chronicles the history of America's first black military pilots so meticulously it is displayed at the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site. How much longer it will remain there is unclear. The 3-D tribute says "the 332nd Fighter Group never lost a bomber to enemy fire." That claim has been made in speeches, history books, autobiographies and newspaper articles for decades. Now two historians say it is a myth.

China has agreed to allow access to military records that may provide information on 8,100 Americans missing from the Korean War. U.S. officials say that, at least at first, only Chinese archivists with security clearances will do document searches and turn over relevant records to U.S. analysts. Chinese troops killed and captured thousands of American troops during the war and managed many of the prisoner of war camps in North Korea.

CBS News dismissed four staffers and appointed a new standards executive Monday after an independent panel issued an exhaustive and highly critical report on how questionable documents -- and a frenzied rush to trump competitors -- led the network to air a high-stakes story about President Bush's military service that turned into a journalistic and political debacle. Now the venerable news division, home of pioneering broadcaster Edward R.

Dan Rather was on the run, chasing big stories from New York to Florida to Texas and back to CBS headquarters in Manhattan. In less than a week: The Republican National Convention. A deadly hurricane. An interview for a blockbuster CBS investigation. Former President Clinton's open-heart surgery. Exhausted and stretched to the limit, the veteran anchorman didn't find time that week to learn much about a news source named Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, he would later explain.

All through last year's presidential race, Vietnam-era critics of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) charged that he was trying to hide something by refusing to authorize the public release of his entire military and medical file. On Tuesday, Kerry provided access to his complete records. The long-awaited documents contained no bombshells, and his enemies still were not satisfied.

Pfc. Steve McQueen was confined for being absent without leave, Lt. Clark Gable's cameraman enlisted with him, and Pfc. Elvis Presley was a public relations headache for the Army, according to U.S. military documents released Thursday. "Elvis Presley will not be released in a manner different from any other inductee serving overseas," the Army's adjutant general wrote to citizens after reports that the rock icon would get an early "good behavior" discharge.