BANGOR – Sgt. 1st Class Keith Hopper had hoped for a glimpse of Air Force One. Instead, he got to look his boss right in the eye when President Bush made a surprise inspection aboard an Iraq-bound troop transport plane Thursday at the Maine Air National Guard base.

“This is pretty exciting,” said Hopper. “I’ve even got my absentee ballot with me, but I already knew who I was voting for.”

Hopper, a member of the 230th Air Support Group from Tennessee, was among nearly 300 soldiers heading for Kuwait and Iraq aboard a World Airways transport jet that made a scheduled landing at the Bangor base late Thursday afternoon. What was not scheduled was a visit by President Bush who strode up one side of the passenger compartment and down the other to shake hands and sign autographs.

“I appreciate being president to such fine men and women,” Bush told the soldiers as he addressed them over the plane’s intercom system. “God bless you all. God keep you safe.”

“That’s MY president – hoo-rah,” shouted one female soldier.

The need to honor veterans was a recurring theme throughout the president’s 21/2-hour stop in Bangor. As he got off Air Force One upon arriving at the Maine Army National Guard facility, the president met and thanked 82-year-old Bill Knight of Bradford.

Bush wrapped his arm around Knight and commended him for volunteering for hundreds of hours while organizing the Maine Troop Greeters, which has been welcoming military personnel arriving at BIA since the first Gulf War in 1991.

Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman, said the president was aware that a troop charter plane would be in the area at about the time he was winding up his campaign speech at BIA. He told his staff to hold his departure for five minutes to provide time for the arrival of the soldiers. In addition to the Tennessee unit, there was also a transportation battalion from the 414th Reserve Unit in South Carolina and support troops from the 30th Combat Brigade at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Sgt. 1st Class Maxie Tolar of North Carolina said he was excited to go to Iraq and that the trip had “just been made even better by seeing the president.” Tolar also would have been happy just to get a picture of Air Force One.

“But right now this is Air Force One,” Tolar said.

Other soldiers joked that since “the boss” was aboard, the opportunity might be ripe to discuss “a pay raise.”

Many of the Guard members were in their late 40s. Hopper said he had been in the Guard for 34 years and that it was his first trip to Kuwait. He had no idea when he might return to the United States.

“I always knew it was a possibility I would go,” he said. “But we trained for it. That’s our job, that’s what we’re here for.”