OUR BETTER ANGELS
HE WANTED TO GO AS SOON AS HE HEARD.
On the afternoon of Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, George Herbert Walker Bush—known as “Poppy” to family and friends—was walking on the campus of Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., when word came of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was 17½ years old. He longed to defend his country—right then, right away, no waiting around. Told he would have to turn 18 before he could enlist in the U.S. armed forces, a determined Bush explored the option of going to Canada to join the Royal Air Force. He was that ready to risk everything for a cause larger than himself.
And so there it all was, even in the beginning: a boundless energy and a hunger to serve; a thirst for adventure and a love of country. Six months later, on Friday, June 12, 1942, he marked his 18th birthday, he graduated from Andover, and he drove to
