Battleland

George W. Bush and the Texas Air National Guard

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Speaking (as we just did awhile back about LBJ’s past) of presidential recollections, it’s hard to believe this was the hottest story going for several weeks eight years ago. In the May issue of Texas Monthly, Joe Hagan does a masterful job of cutting through the fog of war, and politics, to offer the most complete examination yet on this bizarre chapter in U.S. politics:

…his time flying planes in Texas during the height of the Vietnam War remains a defining part of his political biography nonetheless, a chapter he proudly referenced in 2003, when he landed in a jet plane on the deck of an aircraft carrier to declare the end of major combat operations in Iraq—right before the country sank into a bloody, years-long war that would divide the United States and claim tens of thousands of Iraqi and American lives. Bush has said history will be the judge. And so it will.

h/t Lissa August