https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2018/12/05/touching-gesture-by-george-hw-bush-that-his-secret-service-family-will-never-forget/?utm_term=.1451f05e00ae

 

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Former president George H.W. Bush with Patrick, the child of a Secret Service agent, in Kennebunkport, Maine, on July 24, 2013. (Barbara Bush/Office of George Bush/AP)

George H.W. Bush sat near a flower garden in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 2013, holding a 2-year-old child. The pair wore matching blue polo shirts and khaki pants — and sported the same hairstyle.

Bush had learned that the boy, the son of an agent on his Secret Service detail, had leukemia.

The toddler had lost his hair and, to show their support, members of the detail were planning to shave their heads.

So the former president did, too, and his wife, Barbara Bush, snapped a picture, which soon went viral.

“When little Patrick got leukemia, a lot of the agents shaved their heads,” Bush explained to his granddaughter Jenna Bush Hager, a contributing correspondent for NBC’s “Today” show. “I said, ‘Well, why not me?’ It was the right thing to do.”

“They’re a wonderful group of people,” Bush added at the time. “They’re like family with us.”

The agents thought of the former president the same way.

The Secret Service re-shared the touching photo Tuesday on Twitter, referring to the 41st president by his code name, “Timberwolf.” The agency said it “wanted to share a memory” the day before his funeral at Washington National Cathedral.

[George W. Bush’s grief for his dad, George H.W. Bush, is both intimate and historic]

The young boy’s battle with leukemia hit close to home for the former president. He and Barbara lost their daughter Robin, 3, to the disease in 1953.

Following the gesture in 2013, the boy’s family said in a statement to “Today” that they were “humbled and honored by the support and generosity that President and Mrs. Bush and our Secret Service family have shown towards our son."

Three years later, Bush posted the photo on his personal Twitter account, along with an updated one showing the boy several years older — with a full head of hair.

I was working for a United State Magistrate (R) who had gone before the Senate for an Article 3 Judge position. He went through the GOP senate and was advanced to Pres Bush. 

Each day he would ask if the President called. 

One day he and I are in chambers and my judge says he is going to get a hot dog for lunch. 

Not 5 minutes later I answer the phone. Borden Gray on the line with President Bush, Judge ____ please. I'm on speaker. 

I am totally caught off guard. I blurt out "he went to get a hot dog." 

Silence. 

President Bush says, "he's getting a hot dog." More like a statement with a snicker than a question.  Three seconds that I swear felt like 5 minutes. 

OK have him call us back when he returns. (Gray gets on and asks for a best time to call back)