Thanks for the help. If I dont delete the code that you mentioned, then the first document that gets combined never gets a footer.

The entire footer is an INCLUDETEXT field which refferences our "footer" document. That document has "{MERGEFIELD 1} Company Name {MERGEFIELD 2}" and then our contact info on a second line.

Since it is a book mark, it sounds like the first book mark is surviving.
I'm unclear on what youre suggesting. It sounds like if I were to remove the bookmark and hardcode the footer on each document then it should work fine. Please correct me if I'm wrong. However, in the mean time I will try this and a few other things. I may come back to ask about your suggested workaround in more detail because I dont fully understand what you mean or how to do that.