George Bush had faced steep challenges as President, but nothing like what he confronted last Tuesday. Stepping out of a plane 12,500 feet in the air, the former President, 72, took a deep breath and jumped.
Minutes later, he landed softly on the Arizona desert sand, trailing a rainbow parachute. "It was wonderful," he declared. "I'm a new man."
Bush had leaped from a plane just once before. As a Navy pilot during World War II, he survived an attack by jumping from his burning bomber plane over the Pacific Ocean. "It was then pure terror," Bush recalled last week. "The cockpit was filled with smoke."
Bush had promised himself that one day he would make a second, less desperate jump. He waited nearly 53 years to do it. After six hours of training at the Army's Yuma Proving Ground, Bush took to the air. He began his jump with two expert jumpers holding him, but was let go at 4,500 feet. For five thrilling minutes he glided on his own.
"The only time I had butterflies," he said, was in the plane "when I stood up and looked down."