President Bush greets troops during the Persian Gulf War.
BATAVIA, Ohio (Dec. 3, 2018) – Clermont County flags are flying at half-staff in honor of President George H.W. Bush, who passed away on Nov. 30 at the age of 94.
President Donald Trump has declared Wednesday, Dec. 5, a national day of mourning for the former president. The federal government will be closed on Wednesday, as will the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. A state funeral will be held at the Washington National Cathedral that day, beginning at 11 a.m.
President Bush, who served four years in office from 1989-1993, was the 41st president of the United States.
The proclamation from President Trump stated:
It is my sorrowful duty to announce officially the death of George Herbert Walker Bush, the forty-first President of the United States, on November 30, 2018.
President Bush led a great American life, one that combined and personified two of our Nation’s greatest virtues: an entrepreneurial spirit and a commitment to public service. Our country will greatly miss his inspiring example.
On the day he turned 18, 6 months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, George H.W. Bush volunteered for combat duty in the Second World War. The youngest aviator in United States naval history at the time, he flew 58 combat missions, including one in which, after taking enemy fire, he parachuted from his burning plane into the Pacific Ocean. After the war, he returned home and started a business. In his words, “the big thing” he learned from this endeavor was “the satisfaction of creating jobs.”
The same unselfish spirit that motivated his business pursuits later inspired him to resume the public service he began as a young man. First, as a member of Congress, then as Ambassador to the United Nations, Chief of the United States Liaison Office in China, Director of Central Intelligence, Vice President, and finally President of the United States, George H.W. Bush guided our Nation through the Cold War, to its peaceful and victorious end, and into the decades of prosperity that have followed. Through sound judgment, practical wisdom, and steady leadership, President Bush made safer the second half of a tumultuous and dangerous century.
Even with all he accomplished in service to our Nation, President Bush remained humble. He never believed that government – even when under his own leadership – could be the source of our Nation’s strength or its greatness. America, he rightly told us, is illuminated by “a thousand points of light,” “ethnic, religious, social, business, labor union, neighborhood, regional and other organizations, all of them varied, voluntary and unique” in which Americans serve Americans to build and maintain the greatest Nation on the face of the Earth. President Bush recognized that these communities of people are the true source of America’s strength and vitality.
It is with great sadness that we mark the passing of one of America’s greatest points of light, the death of President George H.W. Bush.
Flags across the country will remain at half-staff for 30 days following the death of President Bush.
(Photos courtesy of the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library)
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