"What They Do is...America"

5. George Bush plays for Denver Bear

July 12, 1984

George Bush was the sitting vice president when he donned a Denver Bears uniform and entered the old-timers Game at the start of the fourth, playing first base. When his time to bat came up, the second baseman allowed Bush's lazy pop fly to bounce harmlessly to the ground. Given another chance, he smacked a legit single off Warren Spahn. Also appearing in the game were Ernie Banks, Brooks Robinson, Billy Martin, Bob Feller and a fellow named Joe DiMaggio.

"Top Non-Bronco Sporting Events at Mile High Stadium" The Denver Post.

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Mourning the passing of former president and Naval Aviator George Herbert Walker Bush.

The pros this morning - some toiling into the wee hours - will write hundreds of thousands of words about "41." Certainly, for a man who lived into his nineties, was married for nearly seventy-five years and was shot down (at age 20) flying a TBM Avenger during World War II only to become President of the United States some decades later, there is a lot to tell.

I remember him as a man who served admirably in the background of Ronald Reagan's breathtaking aura. Elected to his own presidency in 1988, he faced first the upheaval attendant to a political theatrical performance known as the "Iran-Contra Affair" and the understandable (and unfair) comparison to his old boss. 

In late 1990 an obscure dictator with delusions of...just delusions works fine...invaded oil rich Kuwait on a pretext as thin as a human hair. "This will not stand" President Bush noted. Not the most eloquent, nor impassioned speaker, he nevertheless backed up his assertion with a coalition of military might that swept aside Iraq's most powerful brigades with overwhelming force so shocking that dispirited Iraqi troops surrendered to the first available coalition unit...or to members of the press. Or, a drone.

America held its collective breath as the first instantly-broadcast war unfolded. The war fighters got most of the attention, commandeered most of the press conferences and in short order negotiated the succession of hostilities. George Bush was sometimes criticized for not "finishing" the war - invading and conquering Iraq when her routed troops were being handily slaughtered by the thousands as they fled Kuwait in every stolen vehicle they could start. The experience America would later have with President Bush's son at the helm has cast that decision in a kinder, gentler light.

George HW Bush also presided over...well, he was anyway there as a horrified witness to...the collapse of the "Savings and Loan" industry. America ponied up a cool half trillion to keep the shock waves from devastating the economy. Among the institutions that toppled was an S&L in Denver controlled in part by son Neil. By and by, a president who had been wildly popular months before was challenged in reelection by a quirky Texas billionaire and defeated by a faux country boy from Arkansas - with whom he eventually became fast friends.

George Bush and his gracefully outspoken wife Barbara retired to their private interests, staying involved in politics where it seemed most appropriate and staying silent otherwise. His sons George and Jeb were successful governors. George W - well, history has a funny way of smoothing out the rough edges of a presidency. Time will tell. 41's public political statements were often bipartisan - he bristled at the treatment afforded Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, saying she deserved a fair hearing based not on wild accusations, but on facts. No fan of Donald Trump, he let it be known he'd voted for Trump's opponent.

In 2009 George HW Bush, then in his early eighties, had occasion to walk the flight deck of a Nimitz-class carrier named for him. His public pronouncements - of pride in the men and women serving aboard - did not include what his private thoughts were, about what he had done so many years before from just such a vessel. Such was the focus of an honorable man.

In the aftermath of the liberation of Kuwait by coalition forces, political writer PJ O'Rourke encountered a man on the streets of Kuwait City. In tears, overcome by emotion, the man grabbed O'Rourke and said - "You write that we would like to thank every man in the allied force. Until one hundred years we cannot thank them. What they do is...is..." - words failed him - is America." 

George Herbert Walker Bush served his country with distinction. In so many ways, his was a life that is America.