VICTORY LAP

Tests battle simulator during Calif. victory tour (HELEN KENNEDY, 5/03/03, NY DAILY NEWS)

A day after he helped fly a Viking jet to a spectacular carrier landing, President Bush took the controls of a futuristic simulator to blow up digital enemy tanks.

The sound of thunderous explosions rattled the room as Bush played with the simulator of a fighting vehicle due in 2010 at United Defense Industries in Santa Clara, Calif.

Sitting in the mock cockpit's gunner's seat, he took aim at tanks and helicopters appearing in countryside scenes projected on two walls of the darkened room. With an enormous boom, he destroyed at least one enemy tank and watched as it went up in flames.

"George W. Bush, you just a won a war, what are you going to do now?"

"I'm going to a commander-in-chief's equivalent of Disney World!"

MORE:
Bush floats carrier crew's boat (TRACY CONNOR, 5/03/03, NY DAILY NEWS)

Coming home was exciting - but chillin' with President Bush was the real thrill for sailors on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. [...]

Petty Officer 1st Class Will Harthoorn said he and the President talked about their family routines.

"He goes and makes his wife a cup of coffee every morning. He said that is the most important thing you need to do," Harthoorn said.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Delphine Djossou, 28, was still beaming from her steak-and-lobster dinner with Bush the night before.

"I didn't eat anything. I talked the whole time," she said. "It's like when you thought everybody forgot about you. He came out here and made everything better because he didn't forget."

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 3, 2003 6:10 AM