Bush Meets With Family of Soldier Killed in Panama
President Bush took time out on Friday to meet privately with the family of Army Pfc. James Markwell, a Ranger medic killed by gunfire during the Dec. 20 Panama invasion.
The White House said Bush, in Cincinnati where he spoke to a gathering of the city’s Chamber of Commerce, expressed his personal sympathy and gratitude for the sacrifice that Markwell made for his country.
White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater, speaking with reporters later, said the President’s talk with the family of the dead soldier was “a pretty emotional meeting.”
Fitzwater said that “we were all pretty broken up about it,” referring to the President, as well as several aides and Secret Service agents.
He said that the soldier’s mother, Mrs. William Rouse, showed the President a poem that her son had written when he was 15 years old about being in the military, as well as a “death message” that he had written before going into combat.
Fitzwater said that in that message her son “was proud of what he was doing. It was a little message for each of the people he knew in life.”
“That was really tough,” Fitzwater added.
Bush has sent letters of condolence to all the families of all those killed in Panama, officials said.
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