I'm not a big conspiracy buff, but in addition to what others noted (those dot patterns, for example: I never saw so many on any copy, from that era or any other; and shouldn't the May '72 patterns match?), a few other things struck me as odd:
1) the military usually abbreviates dates. "01 August 1972" would be rendered 01AUG72. -
This one I'm not so sold on, as the date is frequently written both ways in the military
2) Same memo: who is "Harris"? No rank given. Odd in an official document.
3) 19 May 1972 header: "Bush, 1st LT Bush"? Sounds normal in a movie script -- "Bond, James Bond" -- but odd on a military memo. It would be "Bush, 1LT" or "1LT Bush". -
presumably a typo
4) same doc: "memo to file"? What file? Not MilParlance. -
I'd expect it to be entitled a Memo For Record
5) Ref to pt. 3, Killian would more commonly have put his rank (in abbreviated "LTC" form) on the same line as his typewritten signature line. Equally odd is the absence of his identification of his position, e.g. "CDR, 111th F.I.S., TexANG" or something like that.
6) 01AUG72 memo, lines 1 and 2: verbal orders? Suspending someone from duty? Not done. Especially over the phone (point 2)? And how does point 2 ("I conveyed...request for orders of suspension") square with point 1 ("I ordered [Bush] be suspended from flight status")?
7) Does anyone else with military experience find it odd that the 04MAY72 "memo" would say, verbatim, "not later than (NLT)"? I never had anyone explain "NLT" to me. Hell, they rarely explained anything to me...
8) Post office box as sending address for a military unit? And P.O.B. "34567"? Why not "CDEFG"? An amazing coincidence? A lazy forger? An inside joke? Does anybody know the address of the 111th? -
Apparently this was in fact the correct PO Box
9) As noted (item 8) in PowerLine Blog (
http://www.powerlineblog.com/
) , "the signatures on the CBS documents do not appear to be authentic. Check out the two signatures below. The one on the left is an actual signature of Lt. Col. Jerry Killian. The one on the right is from one of the CBS documents. It's not even close; in fact, it doesn't even look like the person who signed it made any attempt to copy Killian's signature." -
No idea on this one
10) Looking at the same signatures, note that Killian seemed to have a perfectly normal, non-proportional space typewriter for Bush's discharge. Not the same typewriter? Hmmm.