2006 Commencement Address
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PRESIDENT GEORGE
H. W. BUSH
TULANE UNIVERSITY
MAY 13, 2006
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Thank you. Thank you, President
Cowen. Thank all of you for that extraordinarily
warm welcome. I want to salute the chairman
of the board, Cathy Pierson, sitting over here,
and all the other trustees, members of the
board, distinguished guests. I know President
Clinton feels this way. We’re delighted
to be sharing these honors with Dr. Gil and
Dr. Olden.
I want to salute the alumni, the students,
other extended members of the Tulane family,
Casey — she did a wonderful job as class speaker.
Where is she? (APPLAUSE) There she is — and all those great musicians
— Dr. White’s Jazz Band and Jeff Epstein with that beautiful
song. It’s been a very special treat
to be here. I salute the Class of 2006 and
all our broke parents sitting up there. (APPLAUSE)
We’re a week late for Jazz Festival, but let me start by saying
I would not have dreamed of coming here today without the best saxophone
player ever to occupy the Oval Office. (APPLAUSE) Wait a minute, maybe
he was the only saxophone player to occupy… but it’s been
a joy working with him on this Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund. As a Houstonian,
let me also start by saying you’re welcome for Reggie Bush. (LAUGHTER)
I was kind of disappointed when I learned that Reggie was not the first
choice of our team in the NFL draft. After all, you think anyone in Houston
was more excited to hear “Touchdown Bush,” “Bush is
unbelievable,” “Reggie is really good,” “Bush
for President.” You know, (LAUGHTER) now it won’t
happen. (APPLAUSE)
It’s an honor to be asked to share a few thoughts at what is certainly
a meaningful time in the history of Tulane. It’s customary for a
graduation speaker to come and impart words of wisdom. I remember Socrates
going around and giving words of wisdom and they poisoned him, so I’m
not going to do that. (LAUGHTER)
I find that it’s great being here and I’ve looked forward
to this enormously. It is each of you assembled here that has inspired
me. Dr. Olden put it very well. It inspired me, our nation, and indeed
our world, for its determination, like that shown by President Cowen and
the board to carry forward with the school year and the determination
of the faculty, and each of you to return to Tulane under extraordinary
circumstances. That is real inspiration for a graduation. And each of
you here has your own story to tell in the days that the water came, in
the days of profound hardship that followed. Hurricane Katrina left in
its wake a path of devastation, biblical in proportion. And we struggled
at first to come to terms with the unimaginable reality. How can you repair
a shattered home if you can’t find the pieces? Where can you go
when the sea swallows the land? And that’s
what makes the leadership of this university,
President Cowen and the trustees and everybody
else, who refused to yield to despair so inspiring.
The floodwaters may have breached the levees
that surrounded this city. They may have destroyed
home after home, block after block, but today
we also know they couldn’t break the spirit of the people who call
this remarkable, improbable city “home.” The courage of the
people in New Orleans is just fantastic. (APPLAUSE) And that includes
the Tulane students. Even before Katrina made landfall, student volunteers
of the Tulane Emergency Medical Services, TEMS, T-E-M-S (APPLAUSE) provided
care to fellow Tulane students and then after the storm TEMS members triaged
patients at an improvised Baton Rouge facility, joined in search-and-rescue
efforts in St. Tammany Parish, and delivered drugs and medical supplies
to the New Orleans Convention Center. And this selfless scene, in which
many of you participated, played out time and again. I saw a quote from
Tulane historian, American historian, Doug Brinkley, whose new books details
how the men and women from the Wildlife & Fisheries, the folks “who
normally give out hunting licenses or worry about saving ecosystems, were
pulling human beings out of buildings and rescuing them from hospitals.”
Everywhere President Clinton and I have gone, we hear stories just like
that. It’s been said that adversity doesn’t test your character;
it reveals it. And if so, then here in the aftermath of Katrina, the world
is seeing the essence of the American spirit — courage, compassion,
resourcefulness, determination. I can honestly say that working with my
distinguished colleague here to help raise awareness of the reconstruction
effort under way throughout the Gulf, is one of the most important and
rewarding projects I have been involved in. And let’s face it; I’m
82, so I’ve had a lot of rewarding projects
out there one way or another, (LAUGHTER) but
this is the best. (APPLAUSE) This is the best.
To today’s graduates, I hope our working together sends a clear
message. There are some things that are more important than politics.
You get in politics — the elbows get
sharp. He [Clinton] beat me fair and square,
(LAUGHTER) but when we come together it has
nothing to do with politics. It has with joining
you in being what I call one of a thousand
points of light.
Billy Graham once said, “Time is the capital we’ve
been given by God to invest wisely. So the
question is where do we invest it? God calls
us to invest our time capital in the very lives
of people, not in projects, not in possessions.”
So even as I stand here today to congratulate
you all for reaching this achievement in your
lives, let me also encourage you to continue
investing your time in your fellow man and
that means getting off the sidelines, staking
a personal claim in your country or your state
or your community. It doesn’t have to be running for office. It doesn’t have
to involve politics, but find a way to be of service to others. And though
I’ve had a challenging, diversified, wonderful life, I got more
of a kick of being one of the founders of the Midland, Texas, YMCA in
1952 than almost anything else I did because we did something positive.
We didn’t change the world, just a tiny
small corner of it, but we helped a lot of
great kids by doing it.
A lot of people out there like to talk about the cynical times in which
we live. But as I look around this room and bask in the warmth of your
welcome, I still believe there are people out there who care, who are
willing to open their hearts to the pain and need around them and do the
hard work that makes a positive difference in our world. I still believe
there are people out there who seek a higher purpose to serve with their
lives during our time together on this earth. And when I look at what
happened along the Gulf Coast, I still believe in heroes. When I look
at our world, the good I see far outweighs the bad, which maybe explains
why I am a real optimist about the future that you all will be facing.
Let me put it this way, back during my Navy
days, Word War II Navy pilots had a saying
to describe a cloudless a perfect flying day,
it says “Ceiling
and visibility unlimited,” C.A.V.U. I made a plaque. I put it on
our house in Maine. Barbara said, “What’s that doing?”
I said never mind, that’s a plaque that I’m putting on here;
it reminds me of something very important — “ceiling and visibility
unlimited.” And that’s what you wanted to hear when you were
climbing into your plane and preparing for the mission ahead — that
the skies were clear. So such is my wish for each of you as you prepare
to leave Tulane, to tackle the challenges of life ahead. I wish all your
days will be blessed with ceiling and visibility unlimited. Lord knows
I’ll be pulling for you, so get out there
and make us all proud. Thank you very, very
much.
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