Full Text of HR1350 100th General Assembly
HR1350 100TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY |
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| 1 | | HOUSE RESOLUTION
| 2 | | WHEREAS, President George H.W. Bush was born to an | 3 | | upper-class New England family in Milton,
Massachusetts on June | 4 | | 12, 1924, in an age when airplanes had four wings and money was | 5 | | made up
of gold coins; and
| 6 | | WHEREAS, In June of 1942, immediately after graduating from | 7 | | an elite prep school, the teenaged
President Bush enlisted in | 8 | | the U.S. Navy and set off to fight in World War II; choosing | 9 | | the
dangerous service of naval aviation, he learned to take off | 10 | | from, and land on, aircraft
carriers; and
| 11 | | WHEREAS, This led to one of President Bush's closest | 12 | | connections with the State of Illinois; as
German and Japanese | 13 | | submarines were active in all of America's coastal salt waters, | 14 | | the U.S. Navy
devised a way to train its new air groups on | 15 | | fresh water; a large Chicago-based steamboat was
stripped of | 16 | | its upper works and turned into a coal-burning flattop, the | 17 | | U.S.S. Sable; from the
Glenview Naval Air Station and the Lake | 18 | | Michigan-based Sable, hundreds of young American
men, | 19 | | including Bush, learned the difficult and dangerous art of | 20 | | naval aviation; and | 21 | | WHEREAS, After earning his wings, President Bush became one | 22 | | of the two youngest aviators in
the U.S. Navy and was assigned |
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| 1 | | to the U.S.S. San Jacinto's Torpedo Squadron 51 for combat
| 2 | | service in the Pacific; and | 3 | | WHEREAS, President Bush piloted planes assigned to the | 4 | | dangerous duties of spotting and observation of
enemy forces | 5 | | and emplacements, as well as releasing bombs; on September 2, | 6 | | 1944, while attacking
the Japanese-held island of Chichijima in | 7 | | the Bonin Archipelago, his plane was hit and rendered
| 8 | | unflyable; he was forced to bail out with an inflatable raft | 9 | | and floated in unfriendly waters until
rescued by an American | 10 | | submarine; and | 11 | | WHEREAS, After this incident, President Bush returned to | 12 | | combat duties in Western Pacific and Philippine
waters until | 13 | | the squadron was rotated out in late 1944; he had flown 58 | 14 | | combat missions and
earned the Distinguished Flying Cross; and | 15 | | WHEREAS, President Bush was able to spend the final months | 16 | | of the war stateside; in January of 1945, he
married his | 17 | | sweetheart, Barbara Pierce; with the end of the war in August | 18 | | of 1945, he was discharged
from the services and allowed to | 19 | | resume his education; he chose Yale College as his place of | 20 | | higher
study; and | 21 | | WHEREAS, President Bush studied economics at Yale; the | 22 | | dormitory life of younger students
was not for him as he was |
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| 1 | | already a married man; their first son, George W. Bush, was | 2 | | born in New
Haven in July of 1946; the future 43rd President's | 3 | | father graduated from Yale as a member of the Class
of l948; | 4 | | and | 5 | | WHEREAS, As President Bush and Barbara wished to make their | 6 | | own way in the world, in 1948 they left
their New England | 7 | | family homes, got into a Studebaker car with their young son, | 8 | | and drove across
America to the booming oil fields of the | 9 | | Permian Basin in far west Texas; and | 10 | | WHEREAS, As postwar America became a "car culture", oil | 11 | | industry leaders like President Bush and
Barbara were at the | 12 | | forefront; developing technology encouraged the Bush family to | 13 | | move
from Midland, Texas to Houston, where the President and | 14 | | his friends organized one of the first
firms to successfully | 15 | | drill for crude oil in the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico; | 16 | | and | 17 | | WHEREAS, As a respected leader of the Houston business | 18 | | community, President Bush was elected to the United States | 19 | | House of Representatives in 1966, becoming one of the first
| 20 | | Republicans elected to Congress from Texas in the 20th century; | 21 | | and | 22 | | WHEREAS, After leaving Congress in 1971, President Bush |
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| 1 | | served in a succession of high-level posts in the
Nixon and | 2 | | Ford Administrations, including U.S. Ambassador to the United | 3 | | Nations (1971-1973),
Chairman of the Republican National | 4 | | Committee (1973-1974), Chief of Liaison to the People's
| 5 | | Republican of China (1974-1975), and Director of the Central | 6 | | Intelligence Agency (1976-1977); and | 7 | | WHEREAS, As one of the most experienced candidates for | 8 | | national office in U.S. history, President Bush was chosen in | 9 | | August of 1980 by Ronald Reagan, a man who became Bush's mentor | 10 | | and
close friend, to be his vice presidential candidate; the | 11 | | Reagan-Bush ticket was elected in a landslide
in November of | 12 | | 1980, with Illinois voting for Reagan and Bush; and | 13 | | WHEREAS, After serving as Vice President for eight years, | 14 | | President Bush sought the presidency in his own
right; he was | 15 | | nominated by the Republicans and elected by his fellow citizens | 16 | | in November of 1988; and | 17 | | WHEREAS, This victory included the votes of 2.3 million | 18 | | Illinoisans, who enabled the Republican
candidate to carry the | 19 | | Land of Lincoln and win Illinois' 24 electoral votes; and | 20 | | WHEREAS, Almost from the moment he stepped into the Oval | 21 | | Office, President Bush was faced with intense challenges; the | 22 | | Berlin Wall fell in
November of 1989, destroying the paradigms |
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| 1 | | that had governed U.S. foreign policy
since World War II and | 2 | | creating a new world; and | 3 | | WHEREAS, Although this was a triumphant world for the | 4 | | United States, it was also one of
increasing and frightening | 5 | | challenges; the collapse of bipolarity liberated a lot of | 6 | | national leaders
and insurgent leaders, including terrorists, | 7 | | to do bad things; and | 8 | | WHEREAS, In August of 1990, the dictator of Iraq, Saddam | 9 | | Hussein, invaded and annexed the
independent country of Kuwait; | 10 | | and | 11 | | WHEREAS, Utilizing the experiences he had gained from his | 12 | | time in combat through his time in
senior U.S. diplomacy and | 13 | | summitry, President Bush led an international coalition that
| 14 | | defeated Hussein's forces, threw them out of Kuwait, and | 15 | | restored peace to the Persian Gulf region; and | 16 | | WHEREAS, The Gulf War Coalition, which was active in | 17 | | 1990-91, comprised almost 1.0 million
active service members, | 18 | | of whom 700,000 were U.S. troops; despite the size of this | 19 | | immense
mobilization, only 149 American service members were | 20 | | killed in combat; and | 21 | | WHEREAS, Although the leadership of President Bush will |
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| 1 | | forever be associated with the
challenges of foreign policy and | 2 | | his leadership in the Gulf War, the 41st president was also | 3 | | active
with many challenges of U.S. domestic policy; and | 4 | | WHEREAS, One of the features of the President Bush | 5 | | Administration was sustained and cordial
relations between | 6 | | both parties in Congress, which allowed many new laws
to be | 7 | | passed, including measures that helped many broad segments of | 8 | | the American people; and | 9 | | WHEREAS, President Bush was able to sign many significant | 10 | | measures into federal
law, including the Americans With | 11 | | Disabilities Act of 1990; and | 12 | | WHEREAS, After leaving office in 1993, President George and | 13 | | First Lady Barbara Bush returned to
private life in Texas; the | 14 | | couple enjoyed going to baseball games played by their favorite | 15 | | team, the
Houston Astros, and the company of their children, | 16 | | grandchildren, and great-grandchildren; and | 17 | | WHEREAS, President Bush enjoyed relatively good health | 18 | | until the final years of his life and
marked his 80th and 90th | 19 | | birthdays with parachute jumps from a plane, a feat which had | 20 | | saved his life
in the U.S. Navy more than half a century | 21 | | earlier; and |
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| 1 | | WHEREAS, In an honor shared by only one other American | 2 | | President, John Adams, President Bush was able to see one of | 3 | | his children, eldest son George W. Bush, elected the 43rd | 4 | | President of the
United States in November of 2000; and | 5 | | WHEREAS, In retirement, President Bush is known to have | 6 | | been a close advisor and counsel
to President George W. Bush in | 7 | | the immense challenges faced by the new president, including | 8 | | the events of 9/11; and | 9 | | WHEREAS, Continuing his pattern of strongly partisan but | 10 | | never embittered relations with
Democrats, President Bush | 11 | | developed close and friendly relations with
fellow Presidents | 12 | | Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama; and | 13 | | WHEREAS, President Bush's final year of life was saddened | 14 | | by the death of his beloved wife,
Barbara; he assured the | 15 | | nation that his wife had been sustained, and he
continued to be | 16 | | sustained, by their active Christian faith and belief that | 17 | | their family would be
reunited; and
| 18 | | WHEREAS, In the eyes of many observers, this faith was a | 19 | | key to President Bush's
entire life, including his repeated | 20 | | assertion that a healthy America would be made up not of a
| 21 | | powerful leader and passive residents, but rather of "a | 22 | | thousand points of light" made up of active
citizens practicing |
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| 1 | | selfless leadership in their communities; and
| 2 | | WHEREAS, In the final hours of November, late Friday, | 3 | | November 30, 2018, Illinois and the
United States of America | 4 | | were saddened to learn that President Bush had died in his | 5 | | Texas home
at the age of 94; and
| 6 | | WHEREAS, The life of President Bush would be remembered in | 7 | | state ceremonies in
Washington, D.C., and he would be laid to | 8 | | rest in the place set aside by the American people for the
| 9 | | commemoration of his life and leadership, the George H. W. Bush | 10 | | Presidential Library and Museum
in College Station, Texas; | 11 | | therefore, be it
| 12 | | RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE | 13 | | HUNDREDTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we | 14 | | solemnly remember, commemorate,
and express gratitude for the | 15 | | life of George H. W. Bush, World War II warrior and 41st | 16 | | President of
the United States; and be it further | 17 | | RESOLVED, That we pay particular attention to the fact that | 18 | | President Bush's life reaffirms that
we are all Americans; a | 19 | | true leader is highly partisan with his friends, highly civil | 20 | | with his
adversaries, and remembers that light has many points; | 21 | | and be it further
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| 1 | | RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be | 2 | | presented to the George H. W. Bush Presidential
Library and | 3 | | Museum and to George H.W. Bush's son, the 43rd President, | 4 | | George W. Bush.
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