Decision Points

introduction to the struggle between tyranny and freedom, a battle that has held my attention for the rest of my life.
    My senior year, I took a course called The History and Practice of American Oratory, taught by Professor Rollin G. Osterweis . We read famous American speeches, from the fiery sermons of colonial preacher Jonathan Edwards to President Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” address after Pearl Harbor. I was struck by the power of words to shape history. I wrote a paper analyzing Georgia journalist Henry W. Grady ’s speech on the New South and drafted four minutes of remarks nominating Red Sox star Carl Yastrzemski for mayor of Boston. Professor Osterweis taught us how to structure a speech: introduction, three main points, peroration, and conclusion. I’ve remembered his model all my life, which, as it turned out, has included quite a few speeches.
    None of this is to suggest I was a particularly noteworthy student. I think it’s fair to say I got more out of the experience than my professors did. John Morton Blum was once asked what he remembered about his famous student George W. Bush. He replied, “I haven’t the foggiest recollection of him.” But I remember Professor Blum.

    Graduation came at a tumultuous time. Martin Luther King, Jr., had been assassinated in April of my senior year. Race riots followed in Chicago and Washington, D.C. Then, a few days before commencement, myfriends and I were driving back from a trip to upstate New York when we heard on the radio that Bobby Kennedy had been killed. Nobody in the car said a word. There was a sense that everything was coming unglued.
    For most of our time at Yale, civil rights dominated the campus discussion. By our senior year, another issue weighed on our minds. The war in Vietnam was escalating, and President Johnson had instituted a draft. We had two options: join the military or find a way to escape the draft. My decision was easy. I was going to serve. I was raised by a dad who had sacrificed for his country. I would have been ashamed to avoid duty.
    My attitude toward the war was skeptical but accepting. I was skeptical of the strategy and the people in the Johnson administration executing it. But I accepted the stated goal of the war: to stop the spread of communism. One day in the fall of my senior year, I walked by a recruiting station with a poster of a jet pilot in the window. Flying planes would be an exciting way to serve. I checked in with the recruiter and picked up an application.
    When I went home for Christmas, I told my parents about my interest in the Air Force. Dad referred me to a man named Sid Adger , a former pilot who was well connected in the aviation community. He suggested that I consider joining the Texas Air National Guard , which had pilot slots available. Unlike members of the regular Guard, pilots were required to complete a year of training, six months of specialized instruction, and then regular flying to keep up their status.
    Serving as a Guard pilot appealed to me. I would learn a new skill. If called, I would fly in combat. If not, I would have flexibility to do other things. At that point in my life, I was not looking for a career. I viewed my first decade after college as a time to explore. I didn’t want anchors to hold me down. If something caught my attention, I would try it. If not, I would move on.
    This was the approach I had taken to summer jobs. In 1963, I worked on a cattle ranch in Arizona. The foreman was a grizzled fellow named Thurman. He had a saying about well-educated folks he knew: “Book smart, sidewalk stupid.” I was determined not to let that phrase apply to me. I spent other summers working on an offshore oil rig in Louisiana, behind the trading desk of a stockbrokerage house, and as a sporting goods salesman at a Sears, Roebuck. I met some fascinating charactersalong the way: cowboys and Cajuns, roughnecks and roustabouts. I’ve always felt I received two educations in those years: one from fine schools, and one from solid people.
    In the fall of 1968, I reported to Moody Air Force Base in Georgia for pilot training. We started with about one hundred trainees and graduated with about fifty. The washouts were early and frequent. I remember one guy from New York who came back from his first flight in a Cessna 172 looking as green as his flight suit—except for the part on which he had spilled his lunch.
    My early experiences in the air were only slightly better. My instructor