McCain Requested Obama And George W. Bush Deliver Eulogies At Funeral
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(CBS NEWS) - John McCain requested that former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush deliver eulogies at his funeral, CBS News has confirmed. McCain, who had been suffering from an aggressive form of brain cancer, died Saturday at the age of 81 at home in Arizona.
Former Vice President Joe Biden will speak at a separate service honoring the senator in Arizona.
The details about funeral services are still unclear. In September 2017, McCain told Lesley Stahl on "60 Minutes" that he wanted a service at the Naval Academy.
"I want-- I want-- when I leave, that the ceremony is at the Naval Academy. And we just have a couple of people that stand up and say, 'This guy, he served his country,'" McCain said.
Mr. Obama, who defeated McCain in 2008 presidential race, issued a statement shortly after McCain's death saying that "we shared, for all our differences, a fidelity to something higher — the ideals for which generations of Americans and immigrants alike have fought, marched, and sacrificed."
"Few of us have been tested the way John once was, or required to show the kind of courage that he did," Mr. Obama continued. "But all of us can aspire to the courage to put the greater good above our own. At John's best, he showed us what that means. And for that, we are all in his debt."
John McCain remembered: Obama, family and more pay tribute
Mr. Bush, who defeated McCain for the GOP nomination in 2000, issued a statement hailing McCain as a "a man of deep conviction and a patriot of the highest order."
"Some lives are so vivid, it is difficult to imagine them ended," Mr. Bush said. "Some voices are so vibrant, it is hard to think of them stilled."
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