Special air mission 41. The bush family will be gathering at Ellington Field shortly. You can see the motorcade there. His casket will be brought into view really for the first time as it will be loaded onto the plane. Then this world war ii flyboy will make one of his final flights. He will lie in state in the u. S. Capitol rotunda for the public to pay respects starting this evening going into wednesday morning. And then a state funeral begins. Also, traveling with his casket from texas to washington will be his beloved service dog sully. We saw him leaving the funeral home a short while ago. This is bushs longtime spokesman who shared this photo of sully laying next to the flagdraped casket. The caption reading simply, mission complete. Lets start in houston this morning. Kaylee hartung is at Ellington Air field with a layout of what were expected to see. This is the first of really a weeks worth of ceremonies. What will we see in a few minutes . Thats right, kate. Very soon here, g
mission 41, what we see right there. kristen, really, you wrote so eloquently over the weekend about your relationship and your view of president h.w. bush. you at one point wrote, a sense of caring and compassion and human kindness that ran through them, meaning h.w. and barbara bush, through them like a river and washed over everything and everyone that they touched. i thought that was really a beautiful way to put it. your personal relationship with the president, you worked for him, but also you were on the receiving end of the personal touch he has with his personal notes, when you see this playing out, what do you think today? my heart is happy but my spirit is a little low. i will miss my friend. and i know that this is a joyous time, when we come together. but the reason we re coming together makes my heart sad. he was an extraordinary man. the finest i have ever met. and my heart is sad. so i will take and treasure the memories i have with him and my
you. one of the final the final note you received. i had gone to see him in houston just for the day, just for the day. i flew from d.c. into houston. sat with him for a couple of hours. by then, and i won t say he was bound to his wheelchair, because he was never bound. but he was sitting in his wheelchair. we had a wonderful conversation, just talking, about memories and about things that had happened. he remembered more than i did. i thought, where is that coming from? and shortly, as i was leaving the office, i heard him kind of holler out. he said kristen, he s not one to holler, at least he never hollered or yelled at me. i turned around, kind of ran back into his office. and he held his arms out and said one more hug. and i hugged him. and i didn t know that that would be the last time i saw him. and i guess that s a life lesson for us, to always just say i love you. or good-bye. hello. all of it. the next day, though, and i m
colleagues. and i ll take those with me always. jeffrey, how do you describe bush 41 to people who don t know him, never met him? the first thing i say is he s the consummate gentleman. he was a person who was always respectful to his political adversaries and political friends in the same way. really remarkable among presidents to see a person who seemed almost incapable of not being polite to people along the way. in one point in one of the diaries we edited from him, he used a terrible insult about someone, he called them not a gentleman. about as far as he was willing to go. as far as he was willing to go. jamie, kristen reminded me of something as she was speaking, that in the days since the president has passed, i have noticed his family members were speaking about him, yes, of course, they re grieving. but there s real celebration and joy in how they have been speaking. it almost seems like they really
they got more and more powerful. and i remember i was once out with him, and i am not the only person this happened to. he said watch this. his boat could outrun the secret service boats. and he would just go out to sea and he thought it was the funniest thing in the world. the secret service figured it out. they then had two boats on him. they had one all the way out there to make sure they got him on the other side. but that was classic george bush. you can see, as you all have noted, you can see that relationship, that bond that he had with everyone around him, including the secret service, evident today, as you can see they re honorary pallbearers and also the actual pallbearers who brought the casket from the funeral home to the hearse. we re seeing as the bush family motorcade and hearse is arriving to ellington air field. but as we re watching, you brought actually a note, kristen, that george bush wrote