Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who also served in Congress and as Secretary of Defense, has died at age 84 from complications from cardiovascular disease and pneumonia. During his lifetime, he had five heart attacks and underwent a heart transplant.
Richard Bruce Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska to Richard Herbert Cheney and the former Marjorie Lorraine Dickey. The family moved to Casper, Wyoming, where he graduated from Natrona County High School. After attending and dropping out from Yale, Cheney earned a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts from the University of Wyoming, both in political science. He started, but did not finish, a doctoral program in political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1964, he married his high school sweetheart Lynne Vincent. He was arrested twice for DWI during the early 1960s and received five draft deferments during the Vietnam War.
Cheney's political career started in 1969 when he was an intern for Representative William Steiger (R-Wis). He held several positions in the Nixon and Ford administrations, the last being White House Chief of Staff under President Gerald Ford. He was the manager of Ford's presidential campaign in 1976. In 1978, Cheney was elected to Wyoming's at-large seat in the House of Representatives and served from 1979 to 1989. He then served as Secretary of Defense under President George H.W. Bush during his single term.
During and after his last term in Congress, Cheney was on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations. He joined the American Enterprise Institute in 1993. From 1995 to 2000, he was the chairman of the board and CEO of the oil service company Halliburton. He resigned from Halliburton when Texas Governor and presidential candidate George W. Bush chose him as his vice presidential running mate. After a close and controversial election, Cheney served as vice president from January 20th, 2001 to January 20th, 2009. Unlike most outgoing vice presidents, he decided against running for president.
After leaving office, Cheney supported former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's presidential campaign and later endorsed candidate Donald Trump. He sometimes criticized the Obama administration, but praised their operation in Pakistan that killed terrorist Osama bin Laden. In 2016, his daughter Liz Cheney was elected to his former seat in Congress.
In 2006, then-Vice President Cheney accidentally shot his friend Harry Whittington while hunting quail at a ranch in Kenedy County, Texas. The incident hurt Cheney in the polls and became the subject of some jokes and satire. Speaking of jokes, yours truly has made mention of the Dick Cheney earthquake machine, along with the George Bush weather machine.
Cheney is survived by his wife Lynne, their daughters Elizabeth and Mary, and their seven grandchildren.
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