State funeral given to former US President Bush in Houston

The body of former President George H.W. Bush arrived in Houston on Wednesday (December 5) where there was a funeral service on Thursday at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church.

Afterward, he was laid to rest at his presidential library in College Station, Texas.

The body of the former President was taken from Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base to St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, where a public viewing began. Bush and his late wife, Barbara Bush, were longtime worshippers at St. Martin’s.

Bush was hailed at his state funeral on Wednesday as a warrior-statesman of uncommon personal kindness who went from being a hero of American conflicts to representing a bygone era of civility in politics.

Amid an unusual bipartisan spirit at the service at Washington’s National Cathedral, both Republican and Democratic politicians honored a president who called for a “kinder, gentler” nation.

Bush, the 41st U.S. president, occupied the White House from 1989 to 1993, navigating the collapse of the Soviet Union and expelling former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s forces from oil-rich Kuwait.