Since what goes around comes around, can anybody be surprised to see President Bush now being dogged by accusations that his time in the military was clouded by dereliction of duty?

When John Kerry turned to bragging about his Vietnam exploits as a way of highlighting his courage and willingness to carry his share of a burdensome generational load, he made himself fair game for those who saw him as an undeserving glory-grabber.

Bush has said, of course, that he honors Kerry's service with the Navy in the ambush-riddled Mekong Delta. But that hasn't stopped many of his supporters from raking Kerry over the coals.

Now it's the president who finds himself facing questions over an issue he surely hoped had been put to rest during past campaigns. As to whether his service in the Texas Air National Guard fulfilled the terms of his obligation and commitment, he has always been able to play an end-of-discussion trump card: He received an honorable discharge. Yet the stubborn problem is that it's not that simple.

Not that much of anything was simple about how young men in those days did or didn't wind up wearing a uniform or, if they did, what sort of risks they faced.

When Bush graduated from college in 1968, the war in Vietnam was at its peak and so was the pressure on people emerging from the shelter of their undergraduate draft deferment (me included). Except for a few exceptions such as medical or divinity school, graduate study as of that year no longer would keep the draft board off your back. Everybody -- guys, that is -- had difficult decisions to make.

Joining the National Guard was a perfectly acceptable means of satisfying one's military service obligation. And while Guardsmen had to put up with six years of drills, chances of being sent overseas and getting shot at were typically slim. In the meantime they could carry on with civilian careers. Waiting lists understandably were long.

There's now hardly any room for doubt that the future prez had strings pulled in his behalf to secure his Guard slot. He then was fast-tracked into flight training. He wound up in a "champagne" unit of the prominent and well-connected.

None of this rates as an earth-shaking scandal. Even if it might have been nobler, in the grand scheme of things, to have exposed himself to the draft or to have volunteered for full-time active duty, the fact is he found a legal way to meet his military obligation. And flying F-102 Delta Dagger interceptors -- said to be tricky beasts to handle -- doubtless took guts. He racked up over 300 hours.

It leaves a sour taste, though, that Bush and his family always have denied he received any special treatment in wangling a much-coveted Guard billet. Who do they think they're kidding?

If Bush had finished out his six-year Guard commitment jockeying his F-102 through the skies over Texas, or even jockeying a desk in plain view, this whole story would have fizzled eons ago. What has kept it alive and kicking, of course, is 1) his loss of pilot status in the summer of 1972 after failing to take a required flight physical, and 2) his subsequent sojourn to Alabama, where showing up for Guard duty seems to have been one of the last things on his mind.

Bush has long contended that he didn't take the physical because he didn't anticipate flying in Alabama; he was seeking permission to train with a unit there while he worked on a family friend's U.S. Senate campaign.

This may be an instance where the facts of the matter can never be extricated from a swirl of controversy. But the president's supporters now have found themselves trying to show that memos said to have been obtained from the personal file of his deceased former squadron commander in Texas are forgeries. They'd like to show that because, if authentic, the memos paint an ugly picture: of Bush failing to perform up to acceptable standards, ignoring an order to take a physical and benefiting from "upstairs" pressure to give him favorable ratings.

As New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof noted on our op-ed page last week, an especially rigorous examination of Bush's Guard service has been conducted by retired Army Col. Gerald A. Lechliter. He analyzes Bush's record in light of regulations that specified the amount of time a Guard member was supposed to devote each year to training activities. In a nutshell, by his reckoning Bush came up short.

Lechliter also notes the Guard's apparent failure to follow through with an investigation after Bush was grounded. He accuses Bush and the Guard hierarchy of "conniving" to get, and let, him off the hook.

Does any of this matter, 30-some years after the fact, with the country up to its hips in actual, present-day alligators? Well, it would matter less if 1) one of those alligators weren't a war, and 2) if the sterling character of our next commander in chief, whether Bush or John Kerry, could simply be taken for granted. With due respect to each of them, that's a luxury we should be in no rush to embrace.

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