Tag Archives: lie in state

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)

Arizona to mourn Senator John McCain at state capitol

A makeshift memorial stands outside the offices of the late U.S. Senator John McCain in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., August 28, 2018. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

By David Schwartz

PHOENIX (Reuters) – The body of John McCain, who endured 5-1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and went on to become a lion of the U.S. Senate and a two-time Republican candidate for president, will lie in state on Wednesday in the Arizona state capitol.

The daylong public viewing of his casket was the start of five days of memorial tributes in Phoenix and Washington for McCain, who died of brain cancer on Saturday at his ranch in Cornville, Arizona. He was 81.

“We are privileged as a state to have called him a fellow Arizonan, and we are honored to have the opportunity to celebrate his life,” Governor Doug Ducey said on Twitter early Wednesday.

McCain parlayed his status as a Vietnam War hero into a decades-long political career. Over the past two years he has stood out as a key rival and critic of U.S. President Donald Trump. The bad blood between the two persisted after McCain’s death, with his family asking Trump not to attend his funeral and the White House waffling on how to mourn a prominent fellow Republican.

McCain will be just the third person to lie in state in the Rotunda of the Arizona statehouse over the past 40 years, organizers of the ceremony said. The two others were state Senator Marilyn Jarrett in 2006 and Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens, a Tucson resident, in 1980.

Following a Thursday memorial at a Phoenix church, McCain’s body will be flown to Washington where he will lie in state on Friday at the U.S. Capitol before a Saturday funeral at the Washington National Cathedral.

On Sunday, McCain is to be buried in a private ceremony at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where he graduated as a U.S. Navy officer in 1958 before going on to become a fighter pilot.

Ducey, a Republican, has said he will wait until after McCain’s burial to name a successor.

His pick will come from McCain’s party, leaving intact the Republican 51-49 majority in the Senate. It was unclear whether any successor would be inclined or able to play the role of public foil to Trump that McCain did, most notably in July 2017 when he cast the vote that blocked a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

Arizona Republicans on Tuesday picked a candidate to succeed retiring Senator Jeff Flake, another vocal Trump critic. Their choice, U.S. Representative Martha McSally, is a staunch Trump supporter, as were her two rivals for the nomination. She will face Democrat Kyrsten Sinema in the Nov. 6 general election.

 

(Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)