Although so too, to Bush’s credit, is his decision to end the war without pursuing Iraqi forces to the capital, greatly reducing casualties as a result.īush’s broader foreign policy legacies are also complicatedly mixed. Perhaps such excesses are an inevitable part of war, but that makes them an inevitable part of Bush’s wartime legacy as well. forces committed at least one serious violation of international law in their own right, bombing a Baghdad air raid shelter that they knew to be a civil facility and killing at least 400 Iraqi civilians. Moreover, Bush’s Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, had tacitly supported Hussein’s planned invasion. The first Gulf War was a controversial one in any case, driven by a combination of factors including international law (in response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait) and American energy interests. Yet as president, Bush was connected to an example of the worst of wartime excesses. George Bush in his Grumman TBM Avenger in 1944. He served impressively in the war’s Pacific Theater throughout the conflict, including his famous experience surviving a fighter crash and subsequently helping rescue other downed aviators. He was a naval aviator before he turned 19, making him one of the youngest aviators in the service. As the son of a wealthy New England family, Bush could certainly have avoided service if he chose but instead, in June 1942, immediately after graduating from the prestigious Phillips Academy and turning 18, Bush postponed his college career to enlist in the U.S. Bush’s World War II service embodies “Greatest Generation” images and ideals. And in Bush’s case, his public career and presidency illustrate some of the best and some of the worst of 20 th century America, through a number of key themes. Remembering the histories to which their lives connect isn’t politicizing their deaths-it’s understanding what in us they help us see and analyze.

They are among the most recognizable and prominent public faces of the nation, representatives of our history and identity. As with any death, those stages of grief, mourning, memory, and celebration should be respected and honored, in public eulogies as in every other way.īut former presidents are more than just private individuals, of course. First and foremost, the death of George Herbert Walker Bush is a human loss, the passing of an elderly man who lived a long and good life and will be mourned but also remembered and celebrated by his family, loved ones, and communities small and large.

Bush most embarrassing moments