Bush Meets WWII Shipmates, Honors Lebanese Poet Gibran : Presidency: Holiday trip to Maine makes him feel ‘like a kid . . . out of school.’ He immediately goes out on his speedboat.

President Bush, “like a kid getting out of school,” escaped the capital Friday for an extended weekend holiday after a nostalgic reunion with World War II crew mates.

During a stop in Boston, on his way to Maine, he was cheered by onlookers and declared that their reception “gives me one helluva send-off for what’s going to be a great Memorial Day weekend.”

After arriving in Kennebunkport, Bush, who is still recuperating from a thyroid problem, quickly went out on his speedboat, taking off his shirt to bask in the afternoon sunshine.

He began his day in Washington, paying his condolences at the Indian Embassy on the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. He then dedicated a fountain and memorial garden to Lebanese poet-philosopher Khalil Gibran and lamented that the violence-racked Middle East has spurned Gibran’s example of peace.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater, when asked about Bush’s interest in Gibran, said that the President was “familiar with his work,” the most famous being the book “The Prophet.”

Bush then flew by helicopter to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., where 250 crew mates and families from the San Jacinto, the carrier from which he flew bombing missions in World War II, were waiting, dwarfed by two new jumbo jets--Air Force One and its backup.

“This is the best thing that’s happened to my thyroid in weeks,” Bush said. “I just want to say how nostalgic this is for me.

“I feel like a kid getting out of school going off there” to Maine, he said.

His crew mates showered him with presents, including a blue model of the Avenger torpedo bomber in which Bush flew 56 missions in 1943-44, including the one on Sept. 2, 1944, when he was shot down. A U.S. submarine, the Finback, plucked him from the Pacific four hours later.

Four of the stocky Avenger aircraft flew overhead in a salute as Bush called his old flight signal officer, Ralph Bagwell, out of the crowd.

“You saved my life plenty of times,” Bush said, throwing his arm around Bagwell. “I was a rank amateur when this guy got a hold of us, all of us on the Torpedo Squadron, and he made us into aviators.”

Bob Stinnett, who also served with Bush, said he never dreamed when he said goodby to Bush that he would ever see him again.

Stinnett was a ship’s photographer aboard the carrier, and Bush led a torpedo bomber squadron with the additional mission of photographing beaches to help pave the way for Marine Corps landings on Japanese-held islands.

“He was really dedicated to photography,” Stinnett said. “He would come back immediately after the mission and be there in the darkroom as we were developing the film. He would have his nose literally in the (chemicals).”

Bush planned to spend five nights at Walkers Point, the rustic seaside home his grandfather built after the turn of the century on a spit of land a mile from Dock Square in the old lobstering town of Kennebunkport.

Although the White House still has not confirmed it, sources in New Haven, Conn., said the President will return to Yale University, his alma mater, on Monday to receive an honorary degree and address the graduates. It will be Bush’s first trip back to his alma mater as President.

He will fly from Maine to Colorado Springs, Colo., on Wednesday to deliver an address on defense and the Middle East at the U.S. Air Force Academy commencement before returning to Washington.

Bush said Thursday that he is “100%” back from the tiredness that slowed him down in the first weeks of his thyroid problem.

It was three weeks ago today that an erratic heartbeat stopped the President while he was jogging at Camp David. On May 9 he swallowed a dose of radioactive iodine to bring his hyperactive thyroid gland under control, and he is still taking heart and thyroid medications daily.