{"id":34356,"date":"2018-12-21T23:43:04","date_gmt":"2018-12-21T23:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=34356"},"modified":"2018-12-21T23:45:18","modified_gmt":"2018-12-21T23:45:18","slug":"bush-library-and-museum-worth-your-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=34356","title":{"rendered":"Bush Library and Museum: worth your time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I finally made my way to the Highland Park neighborhood of Dallas to see the nation’s latest presidential library and museum, the one carrying the name of George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States.<\/p>\n

It’s a beauty.\u00a0I want to share a couple of takeaways from it with you.<\/p>\n

The 9\/11 exhibit is stunning and so help me it doesn’t make it any easier to listen to the audio or watch the video of that horrendous day.<\/p>\n

I want to call attention to a particular aspect of it. There’s a wall with thousands of names on it, reminiscent of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, which has the names of 58,000-plus fallen servicemen and women inscribed on that long black granite wall.<\/p>\n

The George W. Bush Library and Museum has an exhibit with the names of the passengers who died aboard those four jetliners hijacked by the terrorists on 9\/11. Two of them flew into the World Trade Center; one into the Pentagon; the fourth one into that field in Shanksville, Pa. It also has the names of the victims who died in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

One name jumped out at me: Todd Beamer<\/strong>. It was an amazing moment. I noticed Beamer’s name immediately upon approaching the wall. He, of course, was the passenger aboard United Flight 93 who famously declared “Let’s roll” while leading the passengers in their valiant effort to wrestle control from the hijackers of the jetliner that plunged into the Shanksville pasture.<\/p>\n

Just as the names in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial remind us of the loved ones left behind, so do the names inscribed inside the Bush Library and Museum.<\/p>\n

It is powerful, indeed.<\/p>\n

The second takeaway, related to 9\/11, is the realization that watching the videos and listening to the reporting and the statements from the president so many years later don’t make it easier. Indeed, I get more emotional<\/em> as the years tick away. It gets harder<\/em> to relive that terrible day.<\/p>\n

The events of Sept. 11, 2001 defined the George W. Bush presidency. It thrust the still-new president into a wartime posture. It continued through the Barack Obama administration and is doing so now during the Donald Trump administration.<\/p>\n

I am glad to have visited this marvelous exhibit. It contains much more, to be sure. It talks about the president’s HIV\/AIDS initiative, his effort to reform education, the first lady’s desire to improve literacy among our children. It papers over, not surprisingly, the financial collapse at the end of the Bush presidency.<\/p>\n

But . . . those names on the wall. Goodness gracious.<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I finally made my way to the Highland Park neighborhood of Dallas to see the nation’s latest presidential library and museum, the one carrying the name of George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States. It’s a beauty.\u00a0I want to share a couple of takeaways from it with you. The 9\/11 exhibit is … Continue reading Bush Library and Museum: worth your time<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[95,8231,1899,2146,8232,5177],"class_list":["post-34356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-95","tag-bush-library-and-museum","tag-george-w-bush","tag-hivaids","tag-united-93","tag-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34356"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34359,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34356\/revisions\/34359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}