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Presidential welcome for the George H.W. Bush

NORFOLK, Va. — On Friday in the late afternoon winter light, former President George H.W. Bush walked from his guest quarters on Admiral’s Row to the waterfront on Naval Station Norfolk. He said he wanted one last look at the brand new aircraft carrier bearing his name.

At age 84, he was bundled into a thick overcoat. He wore running shoes but ambled along with a cane. Capt. Kevin O’Flaherty, commander of the ship’s pre-commissioning unit, hustled down the pier to greet a fellow naval aviator.

“Very excited. Very emotional,” Bush said standing on the pier with the giant hull rising behind him. “Very proud of the kids on this ship.”

The next day he was sitting on aircraft elevator 2, with his son, President George W. Bush; Vice President Dick Cheney; Defense Secretary Robert Gates; Navy Secretary Donald Winter; and Navy brass, spouses and family for the ship’s commissioning ceremony. In the coming weeks, the modern warship will undergo sea trials, more shipyard time, and finally preparations for its maiden voyage, a deployment planned for fall 2010.

The Bush is the 10th and last Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.

Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, reminded everyone just what an important ship the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier remains to the nation. Noting that the Bush will probably serve for 50 years, he said the ship’s last captain “has not been born.”

Bush may have been a businessman, the president, the director of the CIA and an ambassador, but his first job after high school was in the fleet, and it has stayed with him.

In his remarks, Secretary Gates said that Bush, when he was president, had to speed through his remarks during a memorial service for the 47 casualties of the April 19, 1989, battleship Iowa explosion. He wasn’t in a hurry. He was trying to keep his composure.

At the podium before a crowd of about 18,000, Bush asked them to allow an “old Navy man a little reminiscing” and told the story of attending the Philadelphia commissioning of the San Jacinto on Dec. 15, 1943, the aircraft carrier converted from a cruiser that took him into the Pacific where he flew an Avenger torpedo bomber against the Japanese.

He’d joined the Navy just shy of his 19th birthday and became the youngest naval aviator. By the end of the war he’d flown 58 combat missions, been shot down and rescued by a submarine crew and wore the Distinguished Flying Cross and three Air Medals.

On commissioning day, the old Navy man did seem to want to do it again. He talked about the “quiet solitude” a sailor finds at sea, especially beneath the night sky.

“I wish I was sitting out there with you,” Bush told the ship’s company on the pier, “ready to start the adventure.”

Later his daughter, Dorothy Bush Koch, the ship’s sponsor, gave the call to bring the ship to life and with a loud “Aye, Aye Ma’am” the ship’s company jogged aboard to man the rails, holding their covers to their heads. The radars turned, the fog horn blew and the band played “Anchors Aweigh.”