George Hahn

After learning that his friend had been killed in combat while serving in Vietnam, Mueller volunteered for the Marines.

As a fortunate son, Mueller was reportedly a Creedence Clearwater revival fan, he could have sought deferments, like Bill Clinton, asked a doctor to write a note saying he had bone spurs, like Trump, or had his family pull strings to secure a National Guard spot, like George W. Bush.

Sociologist Alec Campbell quantified an uncomfortable truth about the Vietnam War

someone from the general population was three times to four times more likely to die in combat than an Ivy League graduate.

Mueller's decision to serve was out of step with his socioeconomic cohort, but very much in character.

I had one of the finest role models I could have asked for in an upperclassman by the name of David Hackett, Mueller recalled in a 2013 speech he gave as FBI director.

One would have thought that the life of a Marine and David's death in Vietnam would argue strongly against following in his footsteps.

But many of us saw in him the person we wanted to be, even before his death.

Mueller went on.

A number of his friends and teammates joined the Marine Corps because of him, as did I.

The Marines live by a code, semper fidelis, Latin for always faithful, to the Constitution and the country, to the Corps, to their fellow Marines, and to the mission.

Mueller served three years on active duty before attending law school.

After a brief stint in private practice, he joined the Department of Justice.

Years later, reflecting on a lifetime of service, Mueller said, I consider myself exceptionally lucky to have made it out of Vietnam.

There were many who did not.

And perhaps because I did survive Vietnam, I have always felt compelled to contribute.

Mueller's contributions read like a John Grisham novel.

After rising through the ranks as a prosecutor, he oversaw cases against Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega, Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, and the terrorists who bombed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

But it's the work Mueller did outside the spotlight that reveals his character.

In 1995, two years after leaving the DOJ for private practice, Mueller volunteered to return in a lesser role, as a line prosecutor.