Dec 3, 2018 11:30 Hrs GMT | Flag-Draped Casket of Late President G.H.W Bush | Houston
HOUSTON (AP) — George H.W. Bush came back to Washington for a final time Monday, heading for the Capitol to lie in state as the nation paid tribute to the 41st president for a lifetime of service that began in the Navy during World War II. Sent off from his beloved Texas with a 21-gun salute, Bush’s casket was carried to Andrews Air Force Base outside the capital city aboard an aircraft that often serves as Air Force One.
Bush, who died late Friday at his home in Houston aged 94, served as a US President from 1989 to 1993. His flag-draped casket will be lie in state in the 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 first lady Melania Trump are to attend.
Afterward, Bush 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 3.
Bush’s casket was to arrive in Washington on Monday afternoon aboard the U.S. military airplane. The crew was tasked by Trump with carrying out “Special Air Mission 41,” a reference to Bush’s place in the roster of America’s presidents.
Retired Gen. Colin Powell, who as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was 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 honor, 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.”
President Donald Trump has ordered the federal government closed Wednesday for a national day of mourning. Flags on public buildings are flying at half-staff for 30 days out of respect for Bush.
“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.”
One of Bush’s major achievements was assembling the international military coalition that liberated the tiny, oil-rich nation of Kuwait from invading neighbor 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.
A humble hero of World War II, Bush was just 20 when he survived being shot down during a bombing run over a Japanese island. He had joined the Navy when he turned 18.
Shortly before leaving the service, he married his 19-year-old sweetheart, Barbara Pierce, and forged the longest presidential marriage in U.S. history. 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 just 2½ years.
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 chairman 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.