How do you take a man — a 94-year-old man, a man who spent his life in service of his country, enlisting in the military at 18 years old to serve in World War II, where his plane was shot down and he barely escaped capture, a man who went on to become a congressman, an ambassador to China, a CIA
How do you take a man — a 94-year-old man, a man who spent his life in service of his country, enlisting in the military at 18 years old to serve in World War II, where his plane was shot down and he barely escaped capture, a man who went on to become a congressman, an ambassador to China, a CIA director, a vice president and the 41st President of the United States — and sum up his life in a 90-minute memorial?
George Herbert Walker Bush had a plan, and it was wild enough to work.
Before his death Friday, Bush handpicked the speakers who would deliver eulogies at his memorial, which was held Wednesday at the Washington National Cathedral. He would, of course, have his son, George W. Bush, also a former president, speak. But then Bush picked three unusual men to fill out the card: A former, and often cantankerous, senator from Wyoming; a presidential historian who had been, at times, a frank critic; and of course, a former prime minister of Canada (who else?).
The foursome made a perfect, if odd, group to remember America’s last president of the Greatest Generation, a man who had literally done it all.
Historian Jon Meacham, author of a 2015 biography of Bush, took the podium first in the ornate cathedral, laying out the life of the 41st president, whom he called “America’s last great soldier statesman, a 20th century founding father.”
“Politics isn’t a pure undertaking — not if you want to win it’s not,” Meacham said, drawing a grin and a knowing nod from George W. Bush. But Bush the elder rose above all that. “Strong and gracious, comforting and charming, loving and loyal, he was our shield in danger’s hour,” Meacham said.
And Meacham told wonderful stories about Bush, saying that once, on a campaign stop in New Hampshire, the young candidate had tried to shake the hand of a mannequin at a department store.
