From Boys To Men
In a year that rocked America, two scions of famous families came of age
Bush seemed sunny and carefree, but "there was an underlying intensity about him, like he'd got a lot of pressure to live up to the family," says a friend from the time. "He was casting about, trying to figure out how to do it." While Bush may have dreamed of striking out on his own, as his father had done, he leaned hard on the elder Bush's friends and former associates, although Gow says he hired young George because both were members of Skull and Bones, Yale's elite secret society. But even Bush's Bones membership was traceable to his father, who had been inducted decades earlier, as had his father. And the Texas Air National Guard's 147th Fighter Group, which Bush had joined upon graduating from Yale in 1968, was populated largely by other sons of privilege. The "champagne unit" included Lloyd Bentsen III (whose father had defeated the elder Bush in the 1970 Senate race) and John Connally III (son of the former Texas governor).
Despite the pressure on the younger Bush to live up to the family name, friends knew him as a wisecracking jock who'd rather talk baseball than discuss his "stupid coat-and-tie job." Until the beginning of 1971, Bush had been living at the Chateaux Dijon, a new apartment complex for well-to-do singles in Houston's fashionable West End. "The scene around the pool was awe inspiring," says Jim Bath, a friend who visited Bush there. "Lots and lots of great-looking girls and people barbecuing and drinking beers."
Regular guy. Bush struck his neighbors as almost defiantly unpretentious. He wore a T-shirt and jeans as if they were a uniform, sat on the floor at parties, and used his couch as a guest bed for an endless stream of visiting Yale buddies. He gave up his convertible blue Chevy Caprice for a clunky Oldsmobile Cutlass. "He wasn't remotely close to being what you'd call hip," says a girlfriend from the time. "He was not cutting edge on anything. He was right square in the middle." And his only real interest seemed to be sports.
Even after moving to quieter digs later in 1971, Bush continued to frequent the Houston YMCA's basketball and racquetball courts, hitting the country club circuit for jogs and tennis. A solid but unspectacular athlete, Bush was relentlessly competitive. "The game wasn't over," says Doug Hannah, a friend and tennis partner, "until he was ahead."
His future still uncertain, Bush relished his success at Ellington Air Force Base, where he spent one weekend and a handful of weeknights a month as a part-time pilot. Bush's squadron, the 111th, flew the Delta Dagger F-102 fighter on training missions and on patrols over the Gulf of Mexico. He may have benefited from family connections in landing an officer's spot in the unit, but he excelled as a first lieutenant. "Lt. Bush is a natural leader . . . and should be promoted well ahead of his contemporaries," reads his May 1971 evaluation, which commends his "eagerness to participate in the unit's activities and his ability to work harmoniously with others."
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