AND FINALLY LIBERATED HIMSELF:

Bush speaks at AHS Chase scholarship ceremony (Cid Standifer, 5/22/09, Roswell Daily Record)

Bush told the soon-to-be-graduates that it was a strange experience walking his dog Barney in his new neighborhood after he moved back to Texas.

"I realized this was the first time I'd been walking in a neighborhood for 14 years," he said. "It's not all that hard, by the way. You take one step, and then you take another."

It was the first time Barney had ever been in an ordinary neighborhood, and Bush had to stop when the dog took liberties with a neighbor's yard.

"And there I was, former President of the United States of America, with a plastic bag on my hand," he recalled. "Life is returning back to normal."

The former president expressed few regrets. He told the crowd the story of Staff Sgt. Christian Bagge, a soldier who lost both legs fighting in Iraq.

"He went into combat because his commander in chief sent him into combat, for a reason I still know is a noble and necessary reason," he said.

Bush used the story to encourage the scholarship recipients. When he visited Bagge in the hospital, Bush told him that someday he would get out of his bed and run, and when he did, he should give the White House a call. Then, one day, an aide went into Bush's office and said that Bagge was waiting on the South Lawn and wanted to go running with the president.

If Bagge could do that, Bush said, "You can go to college."