Life is precious with both highs and lows that transform one into a strong successful and unique individual. Legends in life can narrate it better.
George H.W. Bush, on Nov. 30, 2018 at the age of 94, lived a long and remarkable life, serving as the nation’s 41st president and raising its 43rd. He also spent 73 of his 94 years married to his wife, Barbara,before her death in April .
But his entire future including becoming president was threatened in 1944, when Bush was just 20 years old and serving as a flying officer for the Navy during WWII, according to biographer Jon Meacham, who wrote Destiny ad power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush.
During a planned strike on the Japanese island of Chichi Jima, Meacham wrote, Bush’s plane was hit, forcing him to steer through smoke and flames before parachuting out of the aircraft.
He bobbed in the water for hours, injured but evading capture by the Japanese, before eventually being rescued by a U.S. submarine.
“For a while there, I thought I was done,” Bush told Meacham of the harrowing incident.
The Bushes, who had six children together,lost their second child, Robin, to leukemia when she was just a toddler. In the late 1950s, Bush wrote a letter to his mother, describing the void created by Robin’s absence, and the family’s yearning for a girl. (At the time the letter was written, the Bushes were raising sons George, Jeb, Marvin and Neil; their second daughter, Dorothy, was born in 1959.)
George Herbert Walker Bush, the president who managed the end of the Cold War and forged a global coalition to oust Iraqi forces from Kuwait, has died at age 94. In a political career that spanned three decades, he lost his bid for re-election and lived to see his son win the Oval Office.
The death of Bush nicknamed “41” to distinguish himself from son George W. Bush, “43” was announced in a statement released late Friday.
“Jeb, Neil, Marvin, Doro and I are saddened to announce that after 94 remarkable years, our dear Dad has died,” his son, former President George W. Bush, said in a statement released by family spokesman Jim McGrath. “George H.W. Bush was a man of the highest character and the best dad a son or daughter could ask for. The entire Bush family is deeply grateful for 41’s life and love, for the compassion of those who have cared and prayed for Dad, and for the condolences of our friends and fellow citizens.”
What is your memory of George Bush death?