BBC News Online's Kevin Anderson travels to President George W Bush's home town, Midland, Texas, and asks if its most famous son still has support. Midland, Texas is an oil town.
 Oil wells dot Midland's brush land |
Wells dot the irrigated fields and the mesquite brush land around the town of 100,000. Midland is also the home town of President George W Bush, and he has often said that to understand him and his values, one has to look no further than Midland.
Now with the country at war, this west Texas town has rallied behind its favourite son.
The Bushes in Midland
The Bush family moved to Midland in the 1950s to take advantage of one of the town's oil booms.
The Bush family left Midland for Houston in 1959, but George W Bush moved back to the city in the mid-1970s to get his start in the then booming oil town.
He also made his first foray into politics in Midland with an unsuccessful run for Congress in 1978.
His oil business prospered until the crash of 1986, when he sold the business and left Midland to help with his father's presidential campaign.
Still a Midland man
Many in Midland still count the Bush family and George W Bush as friends. Julie Bell worked as his personal secretary in the early 1980s.
The man who is now the president of the United States is very much the man she knew in Midland, she said.
 Midland salutes its most famous son |
He is still the family man she knew. He still has a clear sense of right and wrong. He still is the good leader that he was in his business.
And she completely supports George Bush, now as president, in the war in Iraq.
"I'm glad that we've made the decision we've made to go in there and remove Saddam," she said. "I'm glad that George Bush and Tony Blair had the guts to do this."
Although she is horrified by the pictures of American POWs, her support for the war has not wavered, and she knows the president will not be deterred.
"He is going to finish the job he started, and that is an absolute."
The oil patch
Del Sloan and Wallace Craig are partners in the oil business, owning several wells in the area.
They do not believe that the US went to war to seize Iraq's rich oil reserves. "It is more about controlling a dictator," Mr Sloan said.
 Sloan: "It is about a dictator" |
Mr Craig said, "Flippantly, some have said that if we were that interested in securing ore oil, we would have invaded Saudi Arabia."
"I don't view it as an oil grab," he said, adding that that he trusts the president when he says Iraqi oil will be used to help the Iraqi people.
The business partners said the initial effect of Iraqi oil on the world market would drive down prices, which might hurt their business.
But, they said that it would bring much needed stability to world oil markets.
The cowboy code
President Bush's detractors have often criticised him as a reckless cowboy, but cowboy culture is still celebrated in Midland.
Before the oil was discovered in the 1920s, ranchers and cowboys eked out a living on the dry plains of west Texas.
On a recent weekend, members of a cowboy shooting club gathered at the Midland Gun Club taking aim with their six-shooters and rifles at metal targets in the shape of buffalos and outlaws.
Fritz Schock shoots under the cowboy nickname of the Adobe Walls Kid.
 Schock: "We don't want another 9/11" |
"A cowboy loved freedom. A cowboy was true to his word. He believed in good versus evil and that good triumphs over evil," Mr Schock said.
"Honour was very important to a cowboy," he added, and he has no doubt that the war in Iraq is an honourable war.
"We don't want terrorist groups. We don't want another 9/11," he said.
Ranger Roy, also known as oil man Roy Williamson, counts President Bush as a personal friend.
President Bush is doing what is necessary to prevent future terrorist attacks, he said.
"After 9/11, he became very duty bound to protect this country. He would rather not have a fight, but he's not going to shirk his duty," he said.
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