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America’s Solemn
Farewell to Its
41st President,
George Herbert
Walker Bush
Article and images from the White House
On the day he turned 18 years old, just 6 months after the
attack on Pearl Harbor, George H. W. Bush volunteered
for active duty in World War II. He would become one of the
youngest aviators in U.S. naval history at the time, flying a total of
58 combat missions.
One of those missions would come to define the rest of his life.
In September 1944, after taking enemy fire, he parachuted from his
burning plane into the Pacific Ocean, sustaining a head injury as
strong winds blew him into the tail of his aircraft. After emerging
from the water below, he lay alone on his raft, bleeding and sick,
until the USS Finback submarine surfaced nearby to rescue him.
“President Bush always found a way to set the bar higher,”
President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump said in
a joint statement on December 1. Indeed, the 41st commander-in-
chief would spend the remainder of his life trying to live up to the
opportunity he received when his life was spared that day in 1944.
His legacy as a veteran alone would be enough to earn George
H. W. Bush our Nation’s eternal debt and gratitude. For Bush,
however, it was only the beginning of a lifetime of public service.
He would go on to become a member of Congress, Ambassador to
the United Nations, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency,
Ronald Reagan’s Vice President, and, at last, 41st President of the
United States.
True to this rich experience, President Bush has become
recognized as one of America’s most consequential and effective
leaders in foreign policy. “Resolute through war, President Bush
was magnanimous in peace,” President Trump wrote in a message
to Congress this week. “As the Communist threat subsided, he
stood down America’s nuclear bombers from the alert posture
they had maintained for so long and gently encouraged the
development of democracy and free markets in the crumbling
Soviet Union.”
17 AmCham South China
America’s Solemn
Farewell to Its
41st President,
George Herbert
Walker Bush
Article and images from the White House
On the day he turned 18 years old, just 6 months after the
attack on Pearl Harbor, George H. W. Bush volunteered
for active duty in World War II. He would become one of the
youngest aviators in U.S. naval history at the time, flying a total of
58 combat missions.
One of those missions would come to define the rest of his life.
In September 1944, after taking enemy fire, he parachuted from his
burning plane into the Pacific Ocean, sustaining a head injury as
strong winds blew him into the tail of his aircraft. After emerging
from the water below, he lay alone on his raft, bleeding and sick,
until the USS Finback submarine surfaced nearby to rescue him.
“President Bush always found a way to set the bar higher,”
President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump said in
a joint statement on December 1. Indeed, the 41st commander-in-
chief would spend the remainder of his life trying to live up to the
opportunity he received when his life was spared that day in 1944.
His legacy as a veteran alone would be enough to earn George
H. W. Bush our Nation’s eternal debt and gratitude. For Bush,
however, it was only the beginning of a lifetime of public service.
He would go on to become a member of Congress, Ambassador to
the United Nations, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency,
Ronald Reagan’s Vice President, and, at last, 41st President of the
United States.
True to this rich experience, President Bush has become
recognized as one of America’s most consequential and effective
leaders in foreign policy. “Resolute through war, President Bush
was magnanimous in peace,” President Trump wrote in a message
to Congress this week. “As the Communist threat subsided, he
stood down America’s nuclear bombers from the alert posture
they had maintained for so long and gently encouraged the
development of democracy and free markets in the crumbling
Soviet Union.”
17 AmCham South China
