Preparations begun on Sunday for America’s national farewell to George HW Bush, whose casket will be flown from Texas to Washington aboard a presidential aircraft to lie in state at the start of a days-long state homage.
The 41st president died on Friday at the age of 94 at his home in Texas – “a very gentle and peaceful passing,” his lifelong friend and advisor James Baker said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
To commemorate the first former president to die since Gerald Ford in 2006, officials have scheduled a detailed, four-day program of celebratory services and tribute, organised with military accuracy by the Pentagon task force charged with protecting the US capital.
It will be a state funeral held at Washington National Cathedral on Wednesday, which President Donald Trump has declared a national day of mourning.
The late Bush will lie in state in the Rotunda of the US Capitol from Monday evening Wednesday morning, under the watchful gaze of an around-the-clock honours guard. The casket will then be transported to the cathedral for the funeral service – the fourth there of a former president.
Thereafter the casket will then be flown back on the presidential plane to Houston, where the former head of state will lie in repose at St Martin’s Episcopal Church, he church where the Bushes worshiped for decades – until a funeral service at 1700 GMT Thursday.
The remains will then be transported by train for interment on the grounds of the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas. Bush will be buried next to his wife Barbara, who died in April, and their daughter Robin, who died of leukaemia at the age of three.