George H W Bush

Born in 1924 Milton Massachusetts—the son of Senator Prescott Bush—George H.W. Bush attended the elite Phillips Academy in Andover, until Japan’s unprovoked attack on American naval assets at Pearl Harbor, on December 7th, 1941. Enlisting in the Navy on his eighteenth birthday, Bush became the youngest naval fighter pilot during WW2, flying 58 combat missions, including a September 2nd, 1944 bombing run over the Japanese island of Chichijima, when his TBM Avenger was shot down by enemy antiaircraft fire. The only survivor of three aviators, Bush floated in the Pacific Ocean for four hours until he was rescued by the USS Finback, a Gato-class submarine.

Young Love

Marrying his prep school sweetheart, Barbara Pierce, in January of 1945, Bush graduated from Yale with an economics degree before starting an oil and gas exploration company in 1953, which ultimately made him a wealthy man. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1966, Bush would later be appointed as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, head of the Republican National Committee during the Watergate scandal, U.S. envoy to China and director the the CIA, before running for president in 1980. Losing his party’s nomination, Bush became the two-term vice president under Ronald Reagan’s presidency from 1981 to 1989.

Read My Lips

Winning the White House during the election cycle of 1988, against Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis, (Insert: “Read my lips, not new taxes.”) during his one-term presidency, Bush skillfully handled complex foreign affairs, including the fall of the Berlin Wall and the removal of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega from power. When Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait on August 2nd, 1990, Bush’s swift response during two offensives known as Desert Shield and Desert Storm gave him one of the highest approval ratings in American presidential history. Losing to Bill Clinton in the presidential election cycle of 1992—due to a failing economy and perceptions that he was out of touch with average Americans—Bush remained active in retirement, until his death on November 30th, 2018, leaving behind, a legacy example of patriotism and leadership.