Former President Bush Pops Chute for a 3rd Time

Saying he felt like a spring colt, former President Bush marked his 75th birthday Wednesday by jumping from a plane 13,000 feet over his presidential library.

“I’ve just had one of the biggest thrills of my life,” Bush said after he completed a 4,500-foot free fall and then parachuted to a landing on a grass field across the street from the library at Texas A&M; University. He said it was “just totally exhilarating.”

Bush, who turns 75 on Saturday, added: “If somebody doesn’t like that or thinks it’s frivolous, my answer is: Old guys can still do stuff. You might as well go for it.

“I feel like a spring colt,” he said.

It was Bush’s third parachute jump and the second in two years.

The first was into the Pacific Ocean in 1944, during World War II, when he bailed out of his torpedo bomber after it was disabled by Japanese fire. He promised himself that someday he would parachute for fun, and so he did two years ago in Arizona.

Before Wednesday’s jump, he told his wife, Barbara, that it would be the last. But afterward, he said it had been such a thrill he may do it again when he’s 80.

Mrs. Bush said: “I’ve already told him he can do it when he’s 80.”

Bush’s jump was dubbed Operation Spring Colt by the U.S. Parachute Assn., which organized it. About 1,500 people watched under partly cloudy skies in near-90-degree heat.

“I think it was absolutely fantastic,” said Jack Guy, 76, of Atlanta, who flew with Bush in World War II and saw his plane go down in the Pacific. “I wish I could do it.”

Just after 10 a.m. and at 13,000 feet over College Station, about 85 miles northwest of Houston, Bush, wearing a white jumpsuit trimmed with red and blue and with his name stitched on the left side, got to the open door of the white twin-engine plane and peered out.

“When you look down from 13,000 feet . . . oh, my God!” he said. “Once you’re out, there’s no fear or scariness. We were rolling around in the sky. It was heaven.”

As with his jump in Arizona, two skydiving masters held on to Bush until he gave a hand signal indicating he was OK. Then they drifted away and Bush pulled the chute himself.

After circling the area with the chute unfurled, he closed in on the landing site. He touched the ground with his feet and landed on his backside.