Bush was one of the youngest pilots in the Navy
One of the most interesting facts about George Bush Senior is the time he joined the military. He made the decision to enlist in the US Navy immediately after finishing high school. Following a period of training, he was commissioned as an ensign in the Naval Reserve at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi on June 9, 1943. One of the youngest pilots at the time, he was only 18 years old at that time. He was shot down in 1944 and barely made it for four hours on a raft in the Pacific until an American submarine came to his aid.
He picked up flying again and completed 58 combat missions. Bush received numerous honors for his service, including the Distinguished Flying Cross for the flight in which he was shot down, three Air Medals, and a Presidential Unit Citation. He claimed, "I finished the bombing run, which was no heroic thing. Years afterward, they wrote it up as heroism, but it wasn’t – it was just doing your job.”
Japan formally submitted its surrender on September 2, 1945, in response to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Bush left the Navy that same month after serving on active duty, but he wasn't officially let out from the service until October 1955, by which time he had attained the rank of lieutenant.
