...George Herbert Walker Bush did serve as a Navy pilot in the Pacific theater during World War II.  On September 2, 1944, Bush's plane was shot down by enemy fire while on a mission over an island north of Iwo Jima.  Thru valiant efforts of American forces, young Bush was rescued, avioding the grisly fate of other American pilots captured by forces on that island (they were eventually beheaded, with their livers eaten by the commander of that island base - an action for which he was hung after the war ended).  

Had young Bush not been rescued by an American submarine, he would have never married his wife Barbara, and NONE of their children would have ever been born.  (Of course, you already know the rest of that story!)