ernity brothers remember him as ``the life of the party'' among a group preoccupied by beer, sports, soul music and, of course, girls. Friends say Bush avoided the nascent Vietnam War protests at Yale and didn't brook criticism of his father, then a Texas congressman supporting the war. Shortly before graduation in 1968, Bush signed up for pilot training in the Texas Air National Guard, where it was unlikely he would be sent to Vietnam. Bush says he wanted to learn to fly like his father; he denies allegations that family connections helped win a coveted slot and avoid the draft. Thus began what Bush calls his ``nomadic period.'' He moved to a singles complex in Houston, chased women, drank bourbon, tooled around in a sports car and flew F-102 fighters on weekends. He bounced through several jobs, helped with his father's congressional campaign, and worked for a year at a charity that mentored poor black boys. He was trying to ``reconcile who I was and who my dad was, to establish my own identity in my own way,'' Bush said in a 1989 interview. Unsure what to do next, he enrolled in Harvard, earning a master's of business administration. At age 29, Bush returned to the town where he was raised, to grow up. For him, it was ``entrepreneurial heaven.'' On the heels of the Arab oil embargo, prices were skyrocketing and fortunes were blossoming. With guidance from his father's local friends, Bush began as a ``land man,'' putting together deals to buy mineral rights. No one would have known from his worn jeans and hand-me-down shirts that his father was ambassador to China. Friends introduced Bush to Laura Welch, a reserved librarian who had attended junior high with him in Midland. They were married three months later. She became a stabilizing influence. The marriage started on the campaign trail in an unlikely bid for an open congressional seat. Bush staged an upset in the '78 GOP primary but he lost the general election after Democrat Kent ...
