WASHINGTON — Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld died on Wednesday after he decided he could no longer live in a world without endless war in Afghanistan.

“He couldn’t take it, not after what they did to the Iraq War, too,” said friend and former Vice President Dick Cheney. “No father wants to outlive his children.”

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Rumsfeld graduated from Princeton University in 1954 and went on to serve as a U.S. Navy pilot for three years, where he earned the callsign “Captain Morgan” after then-Ensign Don “Rummy” Rumsfeld drank an entire handle of the infamous pirate liquor and shit his pants. He won a seat in Congress in 1962 and later became the youngest and oldest defense secretary in history.