[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 91 (Thursday, June 12, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Page S3624]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 TRIBUTE TO PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH

  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise today to honor a great American, 
President George Herbert Walker Bush, on the occasion of his 90th 
birthday. As I reflect upon his remarkable life, I am amazed that he 
has managed to pack so many accomplishments into just 90 short years. 
In fact, today President Bush will mark this milestone by doing what he 
has done on other birthdays so many times: He will jump out of an 
airplane--or as Barbara Bush once put it, he will jump out of a 
perfectly good airplane.
  President Bush has spent every summer of his life--except during the 
war years--at the family home in Kennebunkport, ME. A few years ago his 
neighbors in Kennebunkport came together to acquire a Navy ship's 
anchor in his honor. It is a fitting tribute to President Bush, who so 
often describes Walker's Point in Maine as his anchor to the windward. 
It is fitting in another way. As a Navy aviator in World War II, as a 
Member of Congress, as U.N. Ambassador, as an envoy to China, as 
Director of the CIA, as Vice President, and as President, George Bush 
embodies the values that are the anchor of American society. Courage, 
duty, honor, and compassion define our Nation and his life.
  I am sure it is a great joy for him to share this special day with 
his First Lady Barbara Bush, who also recently celebrated a birthday 
and who has done so much to promote family literacy in this country.
  Last night our Senate colleagues unanimously passed a resolution that 
I submitted with dozens of our colleagues, including Maine Senator 
Angus King, the two Senators from Texas, and our two leaders, wishing 
both President and Mrs. Bush the happiest of birthdays and honoring 
them. The love within this extraordinary family anchors their 
commitment to one another, to their community, to their two home 
States, and to their Nation.
  Another great President, Abraham Lincoln, spoke a great many eternal 
truths that still inspire us today. Nothing he said was ever truer than 
this:

       It's not the years in your life that count. It's the life 
     in your years.

  President George H.W. Bush has filled his years with a lifetime of 
service and contributions marked by integrity and humility. I wish him 
and his family many more years of celebration, and I thank him for his 
extraordinary service and dedication to the country he loves so much.
  I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.

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