Being a fighter pilot -- for that matter, simply taking off in a single-engine jet fighter of the Century series, such as an F-102, or any of the military's other marvelous bricks with fins on them -- presented a man, on a perfectly sunny day, with more ways to get himself killed than his wife and children could imagine in their wildest fears.-- Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff.
That puts the lie better than anything else to the "Bush is a coward" meme.
The same people who think that Bush had enough intelligence to exploit his "connections" to get out of the danger of going to Vietnam, only to climb into the cockpit of one of the most dangerous fighters in history are the same people think he was smart and devious enough to fool the entire world into believeing Iraq had WMD just so he could invade, only to forget to PLANT some to justify his war.
I think the proper term is "congitive dissonance".
George Bush once remarked in a private conversation about his military service and Viet Nam that when he was sitting at the end of the runway at Ellington Field firing that single jet engine, he didn't feel like he had gotten out of anything.
As a matter of fact, during his stint two fellow pilots were killed in accidents.