Bye-Ku for Bush 41

It is reported former President George H. W. Bush has died at the age of 94. At one point the youngest Navy combat pilot in World War II, he flew 50+ missions in torpedo bombers. Many who flew this perilous mission were killed, and he survived being shot down.*

With the customary hat tip to James Taranto, its popularizer, we offer a bye-ku or haiku of farewell to the first President George Bush, father of the second and Reagan’s VP.

We honor H.W.‘s

Service to America

Throughout a long life.

*About the risk of flying topedo bombers in WW II, a word of explanation. To aim a torpedo at an enemy warship you had to fly flat and low nearly straight at that ship and get reasonably close so the ship didn’t have time to maneuver away from the torpedo you dropped. 

This offered the ship’s antiaircraft gunners a near-zero deflection shot, the easiest to aim. Very often they hit the attacking plane. It wasn’t uncommon for a flight of 6-8 torpedo bombers to attack a Japanese fleet and have as few as 1-2 make it back to their carrier.