George H.W. Bush service dog Sully meets pilot he was named after

The service for dog for late former President George H.W. Bush met the famed pilot he was named after on Thursday. 

Sully, a yellow labrador, met Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, on the most recent airing of “Today.”

“It’s quite an honor,” Sullenberger, who led 154 people to safety in 2009 by making an emergency landing on the Hudson River after a malfunction on US Airways Flight 1549,  said of their meeting. 

Sully gained widespread notoriety last year after the dog accompanied Bush’s casket as it was flown to Washington, D.C. for memorial services. Sully, a highly-trained service dog who worked with Bush starting in the summer of 2018, made the trip before going back into service to help other ex-veterans.

Mission complete. #Remembering41 pic.twitter.com/rXdyXAS4lk

— Jim McGrath (@jgm41) December 3, 2018

Sullenberger, who has trained guide dogs for more than 20 years, said a photo of Sully appearing to sleep by Bush’s casket served as an “iconic image” of the memorial services. 

“What a vigil he was holding,” Sullenberger said of the dog. “It was quite a moving image. That was the iconic image for me of the whole service.”

NBC noted that Sully will work with wounded veterans at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center’s Facility Dog Program starting next week.

{mosads}”It was very important to President Bush that Sully carry on serving veterans, so he chose that Sully wouldn’t work for one individual person, but that he would serve many veterans, and the hospital setting is the perfect environment for that,” Sully’s trainer, Valerie Cramer, said on “Today.”