
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 31, 1990                   TAG: 9003310586
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: QUANTICO                                LENGTH: Short

MARINE CLASS SNAPS TO FOR SURPRISE BUSH VISIT

President Bush dropped in unexpectedly on a Marine Corps officer-training class Friday and quickly assured his audience as it snapped to attention that he mainly wanted to play golf.

No matter that it was cold and blustery out and had just stopped raining.

The commander in chief briefly toured part of the base before leading a caravan of 11 golf carts that roamed over the base golf course.

"I'm not pretending this is anything other than R&R [rest and recuperation]," the president joked to about 180 attendees of the Marine Corps Command and Staff College. "I wanted to at least pop in."

The audience, which included midlevel officers from the Marine Corps and other services, had jumped to attention when the president entered the room.

He praised the military for its role in December's Panama invasion and said, "We never have been blessed with finer students in all of our services than we are today."

The Marine base at Quantico sprawls along the Potomac River about 30 miles south of the nation's capital.

At one point, Bush, a World War II Navy torpedo-bomber pilot, referred to himself as "an aging, somewhat out-of-touch naval aviator."

Bush said that "respect for our armed forces around the world has never been higher."

On the golf course, Bush was asked by reporters if he had received a response to Thursday's letter to Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev on the Lithuanian controversy. Bush raised his golf club in the air and said, "R & R."

by CNB