First of all, it doesn't matter whether or not he fulfilled his requirements, for one very good reason: He is not using his service in the National Guard as a qualification, central or otherwise, to serve as President of the United States.
Kerry is using his Viet Nam service as the centerpiece of his campaign so it is entirely legitimate to question the verity of his accounts of that service when significant doubt exists. I won't go into whether or not those who allege those accounts are not the truth as it has already been more than adequately addressed by myself and others.
While it is legitimate to question Bush's service if significant doubts exist, it makes much less of a difference for the reason given above. However, if you do so, you must accept the questioning of Kerry's service as well.
With thanks to Neal Boortz, I would like to present a link to an article that summarizes Bush's National Guard service:
The future president joined the Guard in May 1968. Almost immediately, he began an extended period of training. Six weeks of basic training. Fifty-three weeks of flight training. Twenty-one weeks of fighter-interceptor training.
That was 80 weeks to begin with, and there were other training periods thrown in as well. It was full-time work. By the time it was over, Bush had served nearly two years.
Not two years of weekends. Two years.
After training, Bush kept flying, racking up hundreds of hours in F-102 jets. As he did, he accumulated points toward his National Guard service requirements. At the time, guardsmen were required to accumulate a minimum of 50 points to meet their yearly obligation.
The article goes on to detail his service, and the number of points he earned each year, until the period of time that has come under scrutiny. After going over the known facts about that period of time, the author concludes with:
Then, at his request, he was given permission to go. Bush received an honorable discharge after serving five years, four months and five days of his original six-year commitment. By that time, however, he had accumulated enough points in each year to cover six years of service.
Go read the whole thing, it's not all that long.
The author also brings up the point, mentioned here and elsewhere, that Kerry has personally questioned Bush's service while Bush has not personally questioned Kerry's. Bush even went so far as to state that Kerry's service was "more honorable" than his own.
One issue that I've seen raised over Bush's service was not over whether or not he earned enough points, but whether or not some of the points he earned were valid. It has to do with timing with regard to the dates by which Bush had to show up for training. Since he was in Alabama at the time, he had to show up for alternate training at a base near his location within a certain amount of time before and after his scheduled training date. There is some question of whether or not he met those deadlines. The author of the article doesn't address this and I don't know whether or not those allegations are true. I've looked at some of the information presented at this site, which takes an in-depth look at Bush's military files and it does appear that there is at least some basis in fact for the allegations. Even if they are true, the fact is still that Bush put in enough time to accumuluate sufficient points for six years and, when he left with an honorable discharge, it was during a time where he was superfluous anyway.
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