George H.W. Bush is set to embark on his final tour of Washington, the U.S. capital that is remembering the 41st president’s lifetime of public service that began in the navy during the Second World War, ended with one term as the country’s leader, and was characterized by what admirers say was his innate decency, generosity and kindness.
In Texas, students, staff and visitors have been flocking to Bush’s presidential library on the campus of Texas A&M University. Thousands of mourners paid respects at a weekend candlelight vigil at a nearby pond, and others contributed to growing flower memorials at Bush statues at both the library and a park in downtown Houston.
“I think he was one of the kindest, most generous men,” said Marge Frazier, who visited the downtown statue on Sunday while showing friends from California around.
A similar outpouring is anticipated in Washington this week during the state funeral for Bush, who died late Friday at his home in Houston. He was 94.
Burial next to wife, daughter
Bush, who was president from 1989 to 1993, will lie in state beneath the soaring U.S. Capitol rotunda for a ceremony and public visitation from Monday through Wednesday. An invitation-only funeral service is set for Wednesday at Washington National Cathedral. President Donald Trump and wife Melania Trump are scheduled to attend.
Afterward, Bush’s body will be returned to Houston to lie in repose at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church before burial Thursday at his family plot on the library grounds. His final resting place will be alongside Barbara Bush, his wife of 73 years who died in April, and Robin Bush, the daughter they lost to leukemia in 1953 at age three.
Bush is shown with his son George W. Bush, who would later become U.S. president, and wife Barbara Bush in Rye, N.Y., in 1955. (Reuters)
Bush’s casket is set to arrive in Washington on Monday afternoon aboard the U.S. military airplane that’s more commonly recognized as Air Force One. The crew has been tasked by Trump with carrying out “Special Air Mission 41.” The number is a reference to Bush’s place in the roster of America’s presidents.
Former president George W. Bush, the eldest of the four Bush sons, and his wife Laura, along with brother Neil Bush and his family, will accompany their father’s body to Joint Base Andrews outside Washington, said family spokesperson Jim McGrath. Other Bush family members are expected to be at the Maryland military base for the arrival.
‘Perfect American’
Retired general Colin Powell, who as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was George H.W. Bush’s top military adviser, said Bush was the “perfect American” for serving his country in so many different capacities and should be remembered for “a life of quality, a life of honour, a life of honesty, a life of total concern for the American people.”
“He was a patriot. He demonstrated that in war, he demonstrated that in peace. He was able to demonstrate that in his four years of service,” Powell said on ABC’s This Week.
Then-president Bush and his Soviet counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev hold a news conference in Moscow in 1991. (Mike Fisher/AFP/Getty Images)
Trump has ordered the federal government closed Wednesday for a national day of mourning. Flags on public buildings are flying at half-mast for 30 days out of respect for Bush.
Trump, who has not always uttered kind words about the Bush family, offered nothing but praise in the hours after the former president’s death was announced.
“He was just a high-quality man who truly loved his family,” Trump said Saturday while in Argentina. “One thing that came through loud and clear, he was very proud of his family and very much loved his family. So he was a terrific guy and he’ll be missed.”
Ex-presidents’ club down to 4
Bush’s passing puts him back in the Washington spotlight after more than two decades living the relatively low-key life of a former president. His death also reduces membership in the exclusive ex-presidents’ club to four: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
One of Bush’s major achievements was assembling the international military coalition that liberated the tiny, oil-rich nation of Kuwait from invading neighbour Iraq in 1991. The war lasted just 100 hours. He also presided over the end of the Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union.
George H.W. Bush and the four living ex-presidents gather in the White House shortly after Barack Obama’s election. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
A humble hero of World War II, Bush was 20 when he survived being shot down during a bombing run over Japan. He joined the navy when he turned 18.
Shortly before leaving the service, he married his 19-year-old sweetheart, Barbara Pierce, and forged a 73-year union that was the longest presidential marriage in U.S. history until her death. Bush enrolled at Yale University after military service, becoming a scholar-athlete and captaining the baseball team to two College World Series before graduating Phi Beta Kappa after 2½ years.
‘I just loved him’
After moving to Texas to work in the oil business, Bush turned his attention to politics in the 1960s. He was elected to the first of two terms in Congress in 1967. He would go on to serve as ambassador to the United Nations and China, head of the CIA and chair of the Republican National Committee before being elected to two terms as Ronald Reagan’s vice-president.
Soon after, he reached the height of his political popularity following the liberation of Kuwait, with public approval ratings that are the envy of today’s politicians, the U.S. economy began to sour and voters began to believe that Bush, never a great communicator — something even he acknowledged — was out of touch with ordinary people.
Bush and Bill Clinton smile as they leave the Oval Office in 2005. The two former presidents led fundraising campaigns in the aftermath of various disasters. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)
He was denied a second term by then Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, who would later become a close friend. The pair worked together to raise tens of millions of dollars for victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, which swamped New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005.
“Who would have thought that I would be working with Bill Clinton of all people?” he joked in 2005.
In a recent essay, Clinton declared of Bush: “I just loved him.”
Bush visits a tent camp for earthquake survivors on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2006. (John Moore/Getty Images)