President George W. Bush was taken by surprise when a graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y., gave him a bear hug during graduation ceremonies on Monday.

Gabriel Whitney took six years to graduate because of academic and disciplinary problems. When he finally got on stage, he said he was so happy he laid the hug on Bush and told him, "You're the man."

"He put his hands up, so I decided to go in for it," Whitney said on MSNBC Thursday.

Gabriel joked that he may go on tour across the nation, giving out hugs.

Bush was the first American president to address a graduating class at the academy. He spoke there at the request of former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card who briefly studied there in the 1960s and hitched a ride on Air Force One to share the stage with the president.

"When he was a plebe, he was stuffed in a duffel bag and run up the flagpole," Bush said about his former chief of staff who left the school when he married.

The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy was created following a 1934 fire in which 134 people died aboard the passenger ship Morro Castle. Congress acknowledged the need for maritime-training standards and passed the Merchant Marine Act that created the academy in 1936. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the school in 1943 in Kings Point, N.Y.