Former President Jimmy Carter celebrated his 97th birthday Friday.
Carter is the oldest living president and reportedly spent his birthday at his Plains, Georgia, home, according to a spokeswoman for the Carter Center.
Growing up in Plains, James Earl Carter has lived a life dedicated to service.
Before the first grade, he knew he wanted to join the Navy, according to a Navy video released on his birthday. He received an appointment to the Naval Academy, where he graduated and then served with distinction as a submariner.
In 1952, Adm. Hyman Rickover hand-picked him to help develop America’s nuclear submarine fleet. After his father died, he committed himself to manage his family interests and was honorably discharged, according to the Navy.
In 1955, the baptist, engineer, and peanut farmer began his political career running for the school board.
Then in 1974, while serving his first term as governor of Georgia, Carter announced he would run for president.
“I’ll never tell a lie. I’ll never make a misleading statement,” he told the electorate after the Watergate scandal. “I’ll never betray the confidence that any of you had in me. And I’ll never avoid a controversial issue.”
Carter won the presidency and faced double-digit inflation, high interest rates, and energy problems.
He supervised the deregulation of oil and gas prices, airlines, and the trucking industry.
When it came to equality for women in the workplace, he strived to “ensure a stable economy in which every person who wants to work can work.”
One of the defining accomplishments of Carter’s presidency was the Camp David Accords, which heralded peace between Israel and Egypt.
“We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children,” Carter said.
Carter also survived an amphibious assault from a reported crazed “swamp rabbit” in 1979 while fishing.
His time in office was filled with challenges, but perhaps none affected the president as much as the events of Nov. 4, 1979, when the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran, was stormed and 66 diplomats and employees were captured.
Many believe the Iranian hostage crisis and botched rescue attempt damned Carter’s reelection in 1980.
Whether that is true or not, his failure to win a second term did not stop the man dedicated to service from continuing to help others.
Carter has had one of the most influential post-presidency periods of any.
He developed the Carter Center to help resolve international conflicts without warfare, supervised elections worldwide, and worked to help cure “river-blindness” in Africa.
These efforts were recognized in 2002 when he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his lifetime of work.
Carter and his wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, continue to build houses for Habitat for Humanity.
During his time in office, Carter spoke directly to the public on how to meet the challenges that strike at the heart, spirit, and soul of the national will.
“The confidence that we have always had as a people is not simply some romantic dream or a proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the Fourth of July,” he said. “It is the idea which founded our nation and has guided our development as a people.”
He asked people not to lose that faith and the belief in progress, and he said that “the days of our children will be better than the days of our own.”
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“We’ve got to stop crying and start sweating, stop talking and start walking, stop cursing and start praying,” Carter said. “Working together with our common faith, we cannot fail.”
