HR1350 100TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR1350 LRB100 24364 MST 43677 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, President George H.W. Bush was born to an upper-class New England family in Milton, Massachusetts on June 12, 1924, in an age when airplanes had four wings and money was made up of gold coins; and

WHEREAS, In June of 1942, immediately after graduating from an elite prep school, the teenaged President Bush enlisted in the U.S. Navy and set off to fight in World War II; choosing the dangerous service of naval aviation, he learned to take off from, and land on, aircraft carriers; and

WHEREAS, This led to one of President Bush's closest connections with the State of Illinois; as German and Japanese submarines were active in all of America's coastal salt waters, the U.S. Navy devised a way to train its new air groups on fresh water; a large Chicago-based steamboat was stripped of its upper works and turned into a coal-burning flattop, the U.S.S. Sable; from the Glenview Naval Air Station and the Lake Michigan-based Sable, hundreds of young American men, including Bush, learned the difficult and dangerous art of naval aviation; and

WHEREAS, After earning his wings, President Bush became one of the two youngest aviators in the U.S. Navy and was assigned to the U.S.S. San Jacinto's Torpedo Squadron 51 for combat service in the Pacific; and

WHEREAS, President Bush piloted planes assigned to the dangerous duties of spotting and observation of enemy forces and emplacements, as well as releasing bombs; on September 2, 1944, while attacking the Japanese-held island of Chichijima in the Bonin Archipelago, his plane was hit and rendered unflyable; he was forced to bail out with an inflatable raft and floated in unfriendly waters until rescued by an American submarine; and

WHEREAS, After this incident, President Bush returned to combat duties in Western Pacific and Philippine waters until the squadron was rotated out in late 1944; he had flown 58 combat missions and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross; and

WHEREAS, President Bush was able to spend the final months of the war stateside; in January of 1945, he married his sweetheart, Barbara Pierce; with the end of the war in August of 1945, he was discharged from the services and allowed to resume his education; he chose Yale College as his place of higher study; and

WHEREAS, President Bush studied economics at Yale; the dormitory life of younger students was not for him as he was already a married man; their first son, George W. Bush, was born in New Haven in July of 1946; the future 43rd President's father graduated from Yale as a member of the Class of l948; and

WHEREAS, As President Bush and Barbara wished to make their own way in the world, in 1948 they left their New England family homes, got into a Studebaker car with their young son, and drove across America to the booming oil fields of the Permian Basin in far west Texas; and

WHEREAS, As postwar America became a "car culture", oil industry leaders like President Bush and Barbara were at the forefront; developing technology encouraged the Bush family to move from Midland, Texas to Houston, where the President and his friends organized one of the first firms to successfully drill for crude oil in the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico; and

WHEREAS, As a respected leader of the Houston business community, President Bush was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1966, becoming one of the first Republicans elected to Congress from Texas in the 20th century; and

WHEREAS, After leaving Congress in 1971, President Bush served in a succession of high-level posts in the Nixon and Ford Administrations, including U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (1971-1973), Chairman of the Republican National Committee (1973-1974), Chief of Liaison to the People's Republican of China (1974-1975), and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (1976-1977); and

WHEREAS, As one of the most experienced candidates for national office in U.S. history, President Bush was chosen in August of 1980 by Ronald Reagan, a man who became Bush's mentor and close friend, to be his vice presidential candidate; the Reagan-Bush ticket was elected in a landslide in November of 1980, with Illinois voting for Reagan and Bush; and

WHEREAS, After serving as Vice President for eight years, President Bush sought the presidency in his own right; he was nominated by the Republicans and elected by his fellow citizens in November of 1988; and

WHEREAS, This victory included the votes of 2.3 million Illinoisans, who enabled the Republican candidate to carry the Land of Lincoln and win Illinois' 24 electoral votes; and

WHEREAS, Almost from the moment he stepped into the Oval Office, President Bush was faced with intense challenges; the Berlin Wall fell in November of 1989, destroying the paradigms that had governed U.S. foreign policy since World War II and creating a new world; and

WHEREAS, Although this was a triumphant world for the United States, it was also one of increasing and frightening challenges; the collapse of bipolarity liberated a lot of national leaders and insurgent leaders, including terrorists, to do bad things; and

WHEREAS, In August of 1990, the dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, invaded and annexed the independent country of Kuwait; and

WHEREAS, Utilizing the experiences he had gained from his time in combat through his time in senior U.S. diplomacy and summitry, President Bush led an international coalition that defeated Hussein's forces, threw them out of Kuwait, and restored peace to the Persian Gulf region; and

WHEREAS, The Gulf War Coalition, which was active in 1990-91, comprised almost 1.0 million active service members, of whom 700,000 were U.S. troops; despite the size of this immense mobilization, only 149 American service members were killed in combat; and

WHEREAS, Although the leadership of President Bush will forever be associated with the challenges of foreign policy and his leadership in the Gulf War, the 41st president was also active with many challenges of U.S. domestic policy; and

WHEREAS, One of the features of the President Bush Administration was sustained and cordial relations between both parties in Congress, which allowed many new laws to be passed, including measures that helped many broad segments of the American people; and

WHEREAS, President Bush was able to sign many significant measures into federal law, including the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990; and

WHEREAS, After leaving office in 1993, President George and First Lady Barbara Bush returned to private life in Texas; the couple enjoyed going to baseball games played by their favorite team, the Houston Astros, and the company of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren; and

WHEREAS, President Bush enjoyed relatively good health until the final years of his life and marked his 80th and 90th birthdays with parachute jumps from a plane, a feat which had saved his life in the U.S. Navy more than half a century earlier; and

WHEREAS, In an honor shared by only one other American President, John Adams, President Bush was able to see one of his children, eldest son George W. Bush, elected the 43rd President of the United States in November of 2000; and

WHEREAS, In retirement, President Bush is known to have been a close advisor and counsel to President George W. Bush in the immense challenges faced by the new president, including the events of 9/11; and

WHEREAS, Continuing his pattern of strongly partisan but never embittered relations with Democrats, President Bush developed close and friendly relations with fellow Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama; and

WHEREAS, President Bush's final year of life was saddened by the death of his beloved wife, Barbara; he assured the nation that his wife had been sustained, and he continued to be sustained, by their active Christian faith and belief that their family would be reunited; and

WHEREAS, In the eyes of many observers, this faith was a key to President Bush's entire life, including his repeated assertion that a healthy America would be made up not of a powerful leader and passive residents, but rather of "a thousand points of light" made up of active citizens practicing selfless leadership in their communities; and

WHEREAS, In the final hours of November, late Friday, November 30, 2018, Illinois and the United States of America were saddened to learn that President Bush had died in his Texas home at the age of 94; and

WHEREAS, The life of President Bush would be remembered in state ceremonies in Washington, D.C., and he would be laid to rest in the place set aside by the American people for the commemoration of his life and leadership, the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Texas; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE HUNDREDTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we solemnly remember, commemorate, and express gratitude for the life of George H. W. Bush, World War II warrior and 41st President of the United States; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we pay particular attention to the fact that President Bush's life reaffirms that we are all Americans; a true leader is highly partisan with his friends, highly civil with his adversaries, and remembers that light has many points; and be it further

RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be presented to the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum and to George H.W. Bush's son, the 43rd President, George W. Bush.