"I waited 10 hours to see him, but I am very happy, proud to have seen my comandante," said 46-year-old Yudeth Hurtado, who was weeping. "He is planted in our heart."
As a band played the hymn from his first battalion, Chavez's coffin was displayed at the academy after an emotion-drenched procession through Caracas.
With the entire government, including anointed successor Nicolas Maduro, caught up in the seven-hour procession, there were few answers to the most pressing question facing the country -- the timing of a presidential election that must be called within a month.
Generations of Venezuelans, many dressed in the red of Chavez's socialist party, filled the capital's streets to remember the man who dominated their country for 14 years before succumbing to cancer Tuesday afternoon.