you re watching cnn newsroom. united kingdom is honoring four british divers for their role in a rescue that captivated the entire board, helping to save the youth football team trapped in a cave in thailand. richard and john are receiving the second highest civilian award for gallantry. they were the first to reach the boys and their coach. two other divers are also getting awards. you see the boys there in that cave. following the death of the former u.s. president george h.w. bush, a surprise came to light. it was revealed that he had a secret pen pal.
kaylee hartung has this report for you. reporter: even in death the legacy of former president george h.w. bush lives on through the lives they touched in america and abroad. compassion international, a global nonprofit organization that uses local churches to help children in poor communities released letters shared between the former president and a young filipino boy named timothy. i want to be your near pen pal, i m an old man, but i love kids and though we have not met, i love you already. and so began a decade long friendship between timothy and the former president. dear mr. and mrs. walker. how are you? i hope you are in good condition. i would like to thank you for not for getting me. you re so nice and good. god is so good to us. bush wrote his letters under the alias of george walker to protect his identity because the secret service was concerned for timothy s safety if it were revealed that he was in friends and in contact with the former president.
president trump george h.w. bush . the 41st president of the united states secretly sponsored and wrote to a filipino boy for ten years all while dropping hints as to who he really was. our kaylee hartung has the story. even in death, the legacy of former president george h.w. bush lives on through the lives he touched in america and abroad. compassion international, a global nonprofit organization that uses local churches to help children in poor communities released letters shared between the former president and a young filipino boy named timothy. dear timothy, i want to be your pen pal. i m an old man, but i love kids, though we haven t met, i love you already. so began a decade-long friendship between timothy and the president. how are you? i hope you re in good condition. thank you for not forgetting me. you re so nice and good. god is so good to us. bush wrote his letters under the
identity of his pen pal after he graduated from the program. when he did find out, stafford says he was surprised to have been pen pals with someone who had been president of a nation. although compassion international and timothy have lost contact, the bond he had with the president is not forgotten. kaylee hartung, cnn. it s the time of the season for loving
we ve had just to see these five men together, such a picture of democracy and solidarity. i find it notable the people coming on tonight and they all have personal stories, those old enough to have been around to have known him and covered him, everybody has a personal story. i was fortunate enough to not know him well but interview him and become something of his pen pal and we wrote back and forth and after tonight, i ll go about finding the note he sent to me where he said his legs just stopped working. he wasn t complaining. he didn t do a lot of that. he just stated matter of factually that he was going to be spending time in a wheelchair now and that was the next chapter of his life. it was, as your other guests pointed out, it was a charmed life starting with growing up in