WASHINGTON – Former President George H. W. Bush was eulogized at a ceremony in the Capitol on Monday as a gracious, humble public servant who…
WASHINGTON – Former President George H. W. Bush was eulogized at a ceremony in the Capitol on Monday as a gracious, humble public servant who remained a model of human decency throughout his life.
“In consequential times, George Herbert Walker Bush demonstrated the finest qualifies of our nation and of humankind,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
Bush, he said, was “a great leader and a good man.”
Bush, 94, died late Friday at his home in Houston after a battle with vascular Parkinsonism.
The flag-draped coffin of the nation’s 41st president, who will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda until Wednesday, arrived in Washington for the final time Monday afternoon aboard the blue-and-white presidential jet that serves as Air Force One.
A light breeze blew as the jet, designated as Special Air Mission 41 in Bush’s honor, touched down at 3:22 p.m. at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, just outside of Washington.
A formation of Air Force personnel and sailors from the USS George H. W. Bush, the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, stood at attention as the aircraft landed.
Members of Bush’s family, including former President George W. Bush, former first lady Laura Bush and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, watched silently as Bush’s coffin was lifted from the jet and carried to the black hearse that took him to the Capitol.
Dusk was beginning to settle over the capital city, and pink and purple streaks of light filled the skies when the hearse pulled up to the East Front of the Capitol about a half-hour later.
An eight-man team of military pallbearers gently lifted the coffin from the hearse amid a 21-gun salute and a military band’s rendition of “Hail to the Chief.” They slowly carried the coffin up the steps of the Capitol and into the Rotunda, where it rests on the same catafalque that supported the casket of Abraham Lincoln after his assassination in 1865.
At the bipartisan ceremony in the Capitol, Bush was remembered with admiration by Ryan, Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
Pence detailed Bush’s extensive record of public service, which began when he enlisted in the Navy on his 18th birthday after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and continued for four years in the House and through assignments as a United Nations ambassador, the nation’s first envoy to China and head of the CIA.
Before he was elected president in 1988, Bush served as Ronald Reagan’s vice president for eight years.
