The word that best describes how former Vice President Dick Cheney, who wielded the responsibilities he undertook in public affairs over a long career, began improbably early in life and extended into years of repudiation by his fellow partisans, is “unintimidated.”

He was unintimidated by his rise to become White House chief of staff at age 34 in 1975, after flunking out of Yale University and not finishing his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin (while his wife, Lynne Cheney, earned hers.)

Cheney, who died last month and was eulogized in a ceremony to which the current president and vice president were not invited, rose after being awarded an American Political Science Association fellowship in Washington. There, he favorably impressed two bosses who were elected to Congress at ages 28 and 30 — William Steiger, who, before his death at age 40, pushed a capital gains tax cut through a 2-1 Democratic House, and Donald Rumsfeld, who became former President Richard Nixon’s antipoverty program chief and former President Gerald Ford’s chief of staff.

After Ford lost to Jimmy Carter in 1976, Cheney returned to his native Wyoming and, undaunted by voters who expected to meet and grill candidates in person, won election to the state’s sole House seat in 1978.

He was undaunted as well by what many regarded as inevitable American decline. He was elected House minority whip after former President George H. W. Bush was elected in 1988.

Bush’s unexpected failure to get John Tower, a fellow Texan, confirmed as defense secretary had two pivotal consequences. One was the naming of Cheney, at age 48, as defense secretary. The other was the election by an 87-85 margin of Newt Gingrich, 46, to succeed Cheney as whip.

More immediately consequential was Cheney’s appointment. Unintimidated, despite his lack of military service, he assembled Operation Desert Shield and coolly fired the Air Force chief of staff for an unauthorized interview on the eve of Operation Desert Storm. His White House, congressional and national security experience made him a natural choice as head of former President George W. Bush’s vice presidential selection committee.

Only four men served eight years as vice president before 1950. But since 1950, there have been five vice presidents who served eight years; three of them (Nixon, H.W. Bush and Joe Biden) were later elected president, and a fourth (Al Gore) won the popular vote.

Cheney was the odd man out, yet he was arguably the most consequential vice president of the five. After the 9/11 attacks, he pressed hard for aggressive measures to protect America from terrorism.

In most ideological quarters, Cheney’s recommendations, implemented with W. Bush’s substantial but not total approval, were, if not a crime, then a blunder.

Cheney was the first major party nominee to support same-sex marriage,and he gave unintimidated support to his daughter ,Mary Cheney, and her wife and their children.

He gave unintimidated support as well to his daughter Liz Cheney, who, as a former Wyoming representative and member of the Republican leadership, opposed Trump’s course of action on Jan. 6 and supported his impeachment. That led to the Cheneys’ otherwise surprising endorsement of Kamala Harris last year.

Let me close on a personal note.

When I ran into Cheney, he often recalled playing high school football for Casper against Worland quarterback Grant Ujifusa, who later created “The Almanac of American Politics” and enlisted me as a coauthor. With both now gone, I can’t help thinking that playing high school football on cold — maybe freezing — Wyoming fall Friday evenings may leave you unintimidated by anything you face later.