Bush Calls Overseas Troops for Christmas

President Bush on Saturday telephoned nine U.S. service members at their posts from Japan to the Persian Gulf to recognize their service to the nation and wish them holiday cheer.

Placing the calls from his mountaintop presidential retreat at Camp David, Md., Bush talked to eight men and one woman, a Coast Guard member stationed in the Persian Gulf.

“The president wished them a Merry Christmas and thanked them for their service to our country,” said White House spokesman Allen Abney. “He just wanted to tell them that he was thinking of them and their families at this holiday season.”

The White House did not release the names of the nine service members, but said that in addition to the servicewoman, he spoke with two members of the Army and two members of the Air Force deployed in Iraq; two members of the Navy at sea; a Marine in Okinawa, Japan; and a member of the Coast Guard stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

President George H.W. Bush, made a call overseas too.

The elder Bush, who recently was appointed to lead the United Nations’ effort to help victims of the South Asian earthquake, told Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf that he would soon visit the quake region to inspect relief work, Pakistan’s state-run television reported Saturday.

An estimated 87,000 people were killed and 3.5 million were left homeless when the 7.6-magnitude quake struck Pakistan and the Himalayan region of Kashmir on Oct. 8.

The U.N. estimates 2.5 million people are living in tents below elevations of 4,920 feet, while 350,000 to 400,000 others are still at risk without adequate shelter at higher elevations, where winter has brought snowfall and freezing temperatures.

Among those joining the president and his wife, Laura, at the compound in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains are Bush’s father; his mother, former first lady Barbara Bush; Laura Bush’s mother, Jenna Welch; and the first couple’s twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna.