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George HW Bush flies back to capital for final salute

Published:Monday | December 3, 2018 | 12:00 AM
The flag-draped casket of former President George H.W. Bush is carried by a joint services military honor guard to Special Air Mission 41 at Ellington Field during a departure ceremony Monday, Dec. 3, 2018, in Houston.

HOUSTON (AP) :

Sent off with a 21-gun salute, George H.W. Bush left his beloved Texas for the final time yesterday, headed to Washington as the nation paid tribute to the 41st president for a lifetime of public service that began in the Navy during World War II, ended with four years as president and was characterised throughout by what admirers say was decency, generosity and kindness.

A long motorcade accompanied the hearse carrying Bush's remains from a Houston funeral home to nearby Ellington Field for the trip to the nation's capital on an aircraft that often serves as Air Force One. Military artillery fired the salute, and servicemen carried the casket to the plane.

Former President George W. Bush, the eldest of the four Bush sons, and his wife, Laura, along with brother Neil Bush and his family, boarded the plane for the cross-country trip to Joint Base Andrews outside Washington.

 

Candlelight Vigil

 

On Sunday, students, staff and visitors had flocked to Bush's presidential library on the campus of Texas A&M University, with thousands of mourners paying their respects at a weekend candlelight vigil at a nearby pond and others contributing 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.

Bush, who was president from 1989 to 1993, will lie in state in the US 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. Bush's family has not said who will speak at the service. Former President Jimmy Carter also will be there.

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.

Retired General 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 honour, a life of honesty, a life of total concern for the American people."