George Herbert Walker Bush rode the train today to his final resting place. The services are over. The 41st president, who the nation has honored with glorious tributes to his service to the nation he loved, will join his wife Barbara and their young daughter.

The train ride today reminds me of an earlier such farewell to another iconic figure, a representative of yet another iconic American political family.

The late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy rode the train for his final ride from New York City to Arlington, Va., where he was laid to rest eternally next to his brother, the slain President John F. Kennedy. That was June 1968. The nation was stunned and shocked beyond belief that an assassin would strike another member of the Kennedy clan. He did.

Thousands upon thousands of mourners lined the track on which RFK’s burial train rode south from NYC to Arlington National Cemetery.

Thousands of mourners are saluting the late President Bush today as the train carries him to his final rest at the Bush Presidential Library. They are lining the tracks for the 70-mile ride from Houston, where the president was memorialized one final time at the church where he and Barbara worshiped, to College Station. Then, as now, Americans stood at attention, hands over their hearts as the train passed by.

The nation never will forget the accomplishments of this good man, patriot and lifelong public servant, just as it won’t forget the ideals espoused by the slain senator who sought to become president.

It fills my heart to know he is getting this level of respect and love from the nation 50 years after Americans paid their final respects to a man named Bobby.