[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 193 (Thursday, December 6, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7352-S7353]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      REMEMBERING GEORGE H.W. BUSH

  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, this past weekend the news that George H.W. 
Bush, our 41st President had died, quickly made its way across the 
country and around the world.
  Today, I would like to honor the late President George Herbert Walker 
Bush. I appreciate having this opportunity to celebrate the life and 
accomplishments of President Bush and to mourn him. His loss will be 
deeply felt by all of us here in Congress, throughout the Nation, and 
around the world. He is survived by his five children, including former 
President George W. Bush, former Governor Jeb Bush, Neil, Marvin, and 
Dorothy Bush, his 17 grandchildren, and 8 great-grandchildren.
  Great thinkers, writers, and other speakers will take up their pens 
and try to determine President Bush's place in history, and they will 
debate his significance to the United States of America and his effect 
on the world. For those of us who lived through his Presidency, who 
experienced his time as our leader, those questions and debates are 
unnecessary. His place in history has been determined not by what we 
say now, but by his actions as President, his dignity as a person, and 
his compassion for others. His dedication to service and humility 
remained at the forefront, even as he filled the role as leader of the 
free world.
  I was serving in the Wyoming Legislature and did not work alongside 
President Bush in Washington, but while I did not have the pleasure of 
working with him personally, his career and his life speak to what a 
remarkable man he was. He was a dedicated husband, father, and public 
servant. He lived his life with honor and distinction, from enlisting 
in the Navy at the age of 18 during World War II to serving in 
Congress. He continued his tradition of public service in the executive 
branch as an ambassador, Vice President, and finally as President. His 
dedication to serving his country was exemplary.
  As an ambassador and negotiator, he was a talented diplomat and 
powerful champion for America's interests. As President, he worked 
toward education reform and signed the Americans with Disabilities Act 
into law, helping to ensure disabled Americans have opportunities 
others take for granted.
  He was a practical man who preferred prudence and what is real to the 
abstract and ephemeral. It was this belief in practicality and prudence 
that allowed him to handle some of the most challenging events in our 
history with calm tenacity. His pragmatic nature allowed President Bush 
to collaborate and befriend President Bill Clinton, once his political 
adversary, to help lead the relief efforts to raise funds for the 
victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami.
  During his Presidency, the Cold War finally ended, the Iron Curtain 
came down, and the people of Eastern Europe chose freedom. These events 
left a singular super power amid a world free of major conflict, and he 
aimed to lead the world into an era where the world would recognize its 
``shared responsibility for freedom and justice, a world where the 
strong respect the rights of the weak.''
  President Bush once listed the qualities he most cherished and among 
them were: ``family, . . . love, decency, honor, pride, tolerance, 
hope, kindness, loyalty, freedom, . . . faith, service to country, 
[and] fair play . . .'' He and Barbara passed those values on to their 
children and lived them in front of the country. In many different 
ways, they nurtured the next generation of leaders whose contributions 
have continued to enrich this Nation.
  President Bush's faith helped him through many of the more trying 
times in his life, through his daughter's death, through his time in 
war, he was a man who had not one moment but many that helped him turn 
to God on

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his spiritual journey. He once said, ``I am guided by certain 
traditions, one is that there's a God, and He is good and His love, 
while free has a self-imposed cost: We must be good to one another.'' 
This sentiment is emblematic of his life. He served as many things: 
father, husband, President, humanitarian, and fighter. His life is a 
study of strong choices and bold strokes across the history of the 
United States, all of them guided by the strongest fundamentals of 
right and wrong. I am sure that he is joyous to be reunited with his 
closest companion, Barbara, and their daughter Robin, in heaven.
  While America is remembering a combat veteran, a President, and an 
ambassador, his family will be remembering a husband and a father. My 
wife Diana and I send our thoughts and deepest condolences to the 
entire Bush family as we mourn the passing of a President. The passing 
of a loved one, especially someone who has meant so much to so many, 
has never and will never be an easy burden to bear.
  How can I adequately speak about the life of a man who has had such a 
long and distinguished career? By praising the accomplishments of a man 
who never stopped working to make the world a better place, the man who 
reached across the political aisle to foster friendships, and by saying 
thank you.
  Thank you for your service. Thank you for your leadership.
  God bless you, and may you and your family find peace.

                          ____________________