Tag Archives: 41st President of the United States

Former U.S. President Bush’s body to make final trip to Washington

Sully, the service dog of former U.S. President George H.W. Bush in his final months, lays in front of Bush's casket at the George H. Lewis & Sons funeral home in Houston, Texas, U.S., December 3, 2018. Courtesy Office of George H. W. Bush-Evan Sisley/Handout via REUTERS

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Family and former staffers of former U.S. President George H.W. Bush will hold a brief ceremony on Monday morning at a Texas Air National Guard base outside Houston, putting his casket onto Air Force One for a final trip to Washington.

Two of his sons, former President George W. Bush and Neil Bush, will accompany the body of the 41st president on the presidential jet, called “Special Air Mission 41,” for the flight to Joint Base Andrews outside of Washington.

FILE PHOTO: Mourners take part in a vigil outside the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, a day after the 41st president of the United States died, in College Station, Texas, U.S., December 1, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

FILE PHOTO: Mourners take part in a vigil outside the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, a day after the 41st president of the United States died, in College Station, Texas, U.S., December 1, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

Bush will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda from Monday through Wednesday when a state funeral is scheduled at the National Cathedral.

A contingent of former Bush staff members now living in Texas will join the mourners leaving Houston on Monday morning, former Ambassador Chase Untermeyer told Houston Public Media.

The 41st president of the United States died at his Houston home on Friday night, seven months after his wife Barbara died. After services in Washington, there will be another funeral in Houston on Thursday followed by burial at

the Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas.

Bush served two terms as vice president under fellow Republican President Ronald Reagan before his own stint in the Oval Office from 1989 to 1993, a time that saw the end of the Cold War as well as the United States’ routing of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s army in the 1991 Gulf War.

He failed to win a second term after breaking a no-new-taxes pledge.

FILE PHOTO: A makeshift memorial is pictured at the foot of a statue outside the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, a day after the 41st president of the United States died, in College Station, Texas, U.S., December 1, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

FILE PHOTO: A makeshift memorial is pictured at the foot of a statue outside the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, a day after the 41st president of the United States died, in College Station, Texas, U.S., December 1, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

Trump has ordered the federal government to close on Wednesday and both the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq will be closed on Wednesday in observance.

Remembrances to George and Barbara Bush sprang up in the neighborhood where he made his home, at a memorial to President Bush at a city park and at the airport named in his honor.

Christy Smith paused over the weekend to pay her respects to President Bush at a bronze statue of him at a Houston park.

“He set a good example for all of us,” said Smith, 39. “He always was caring and treated people equally.”

(Reporting by Gary McWilliams, additional reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)

Former President George H.W. Bush dead at 94

FILE PHOTO: Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush speaks at the World Leadership Summit in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates November 21, 2006. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo

(Reuters) – Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, who presided over the end of the Cold War and routed Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army, died on Friday at the age of 94, a family spokesman said.

Bush, the 41st president of the United States, lived longer than any of his predecessors. His death at 10:10 p.m. Central time was announced in a statement issued by longtime spokesman Jim McGrath. No further details about the circumstances of his death were immediately available.

He was the father of former President George W. Bush, who served two terms in the White House from 2001 through 2008, and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who unsuccessfully sought the 2016 Republican nomination for president.

The elder Bush, a Republican like his sons, also served as vice president for eight years during Ronald Reagan’s two terms as president, before being elected to the White House himself.

He defeated former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee, in the 1988 presidential campaign, and lost his 1992 re-election bid to Democrat Bill Clinton.

Bush’s death came seven months after that of his wife, former first lady Barbara Bush, to whom he was married for 73 years.

The former president, who served as a U.S. naval aviator during World War Two, had attended his wife’s funeral in Houston in a wheelchair and wore a pair of colorful socks festooned with books, in honor of his late wife’s commitment to literacy.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Robert Birsel and Tom Hogue)