b'U . S .M i l i t a r yFemale flight crew member at NAS Corpus Christi, during WWIIU.S. Navy Aviator George H. W. Bush in training at NAS Corpus Christi during World War II, 1943A LEGACY OF SERVICETHE DEEP MILITARY HISTORY OF THE TEXAS COASTAL BENDCorpus Christis entire existence has been defined through history by its strategic advantage in military conflict, dating back to its very founding by Colonel Henry Lawrence Kinney as an illegal supply outpost for the Mexican army, back in 1841. Four years later, famed General Zachary Taylor established an army encampment at Rancho Kinney, in preparation for war with Mexico, months before Texas be-came one of the United States. Less than two decades after that, Major Alfred Marmaduke Hobby commanded a Confederate battalion that operated and de-fended the supply depot established at Corpus Christi, and which successfully repelled a Union Navy assault in August 1862 in what would be the most polite and least costly battle of the Civil War.At the end of World War I, an army hospital was established on North Beach, and members of the 37th Infantry Battalion were caught in the 1919 Hurricane in which some were lost, and after which many of them served to assist survivors of the storm that killed almost 1,000 people. Just months before the U. S. Navy Pacific Fleet was attacked at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in December 1941, Naval Air Station Corpus Christi was opened as the central training base for Naval aviators.Two years later, at the height of World War II, 18-year-old George H. W. BushJohn McCain and his father, a four-star Admiral, at his earned his wings at NAS Corpus Christi after enlisting in the Navy the day afterwinging ceremony at NAS Corpus Christi, in June 1960 he graduated high school. The future president would serve as one the youngest 64THE COASTAL BEND GUIDE TheCoastalBend.com'