George Bush was the 43rd President of the United States. He was born on July 6, 1946. Even though people think he’s always been from Texas, he was actually born in New Haven, Connecticut. He is the son of Barbara and George HW Bush. His father was the 41st President of the United States making them the second family to have a father and son as presidents. (The other was John Adams and John Quincy Adams.) Before George became president he was the 46th Governor of Texas.

After going to college and graduating from Yale in 1968, (near the bottom percentage of the class) he was also in a secret society in Yale called the Skull and Bones. This is a secret society available to very few people. The credentials needed were usually a combination of wealth and family influence. He later graduated from Harvard Business School in 1975.

While going to school he also served in the Texas Air National Guard but was discharged on October in 1974 for failure of fulfilling his Guard Duties as a jet fighter pilot. He was then transferred to inactive duty to the Air Force Reserve. He was honorably discharged from the Air Force Reserve on November 21st in 1974. Many people including former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe and many people that actually served and completed their assignments alleged that George was treated better due to his father’s political standing. (His father was a Representative from Texas, Ambassador, and the CIA Director at these times.)

At the age of 31 he met Laura Welch a school teacher. Eventually he later married her. Many credit her influence on him as a savior of sorts. He had spent a lot of his time before her basically “living the wild life.” People thought of him as a bit of a wild child, he himself has said as much. He was actually arrested in the State of Maine for driving while drunk and in possession of cocaine. But with Laura’s help he eventually found himself and Christianity, saying that his life was then changed for the better. Shortly after, he ran for Representative of Texas but lost handily. George then spent the next 20 plus years trying new things. He spent most of his time seeking oil all over Texas, Oklahoma and other areas using his father’s influence and money to find other people to finance his endeavors. He also worked with his father on many elections for the Republican Party. He worked for people like Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and of course his father. It’s been said that he never really had a paying job until he was in his 40’s. He became co-owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team; he also gave himself the job as the publicity director at the time.

It was in 1994 that his political career started to take off. He ran against Ann Richards Democratic Governor of Texas and beat her narrowly and not without a lot of controversy. He served as Governor until 2000 when he started his campaign for President of the United States of America. He won the presidency with much, much more controversy against Al Gore, then the Vice president of the United States. The race actually came down to the State of Florida. Many people think the Republicans in Florida gave him the election, even though Al Gore won the popular vote George Bush had won the Electoral College vote giving him the Presidency.

When George Bush came to be President after Bill Clinton, he was given a surplus of income and taxes giving him the opportunity of paying down the National Debt of about 4 trillion dollars at the time. Instead one of his first acts was to give the super-rich in the country a tax break. This was critical to the economy for two reasons. It decreased our ability to pay down the National Debt’ it also started adding to the debt because of the two wars he started in Iraq and Afghanistan. The tax cuts took away the ability to pay for the wars. Doing this ended up more than doubling our National Debt to over 9 trillion dollars in 8 years. Ironically, he ran on being fiscally responsible and smaller government. What he ended up with was the largest government and the highest National Debt the country has ever seen.

Many think that good qualities of a president are loyalty, faith, commitment, dedication and hard work. Others believe that a military back ground is also very relative to these qualities which in some cases is very true and also useful as president. But I believe that in George Bush’s former election as president that his so-called military background had a very little to none at all of an effect in his time as president or in politics alone.

During Bush’s two terms as president he dramatically changed the impact on economy by cutting taxes for the rich and forgetting his responsibility to care for all including the less fortunate and the poor. But after he was no longer in office, Barrack Obama became president and was blamed for the mistakes that George made during his presidency. All and all what I think the conclusion must be that George W. Bush was not the best president that the United States has had, and that in his case, a military background had nearly no reason for most of his failures or mistakes as President. In fact, before George W. Bush was elected president, the worst president ever was thought to be President Franklin Pierce, who ironically is the fourth cousin of his mother Barbara Pierce Bush.


Sydney Gordon goes to Jewett School of the Arts. She is a Drama major and enjoys it very much. She has been in Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and also hopes to be in Fiddler on the Roof, the school’s spring musical. Sydney also volunteers as a techy at her local community theater. Sydney’s favorite play is It’s a Wonderful Life. Sydney loves to be a part of a group and work together with others, especially when it comes to sports! She hopes to go to Harrison Arts Center and University of Florida and major in Drama.

Note from the Veterans Editor: The opinions of this guest author may or may not be shared by the editor, but the ability to freely express them are respectfully championed!