John Glenn died Thursday at age 95.
While all Americans note his passing and will acknowledge his role as a pioneer in space travel and, later, his service as a four-term U.S. Senator, the depth of feeling we associate with his death is heavily influenced by when we were born.
For baby boomers, his death resonates most powerfully. He was a hero for our time.
Younger Americans, for whom knowledge of Glenn’s most notable achievements are confined to the history books, probably don’t understand the deep affection we aging boomers feel for him.
For those people it is understandable.
John Glenn was not the first man in space, nor even the first American. He was not the first man on the moon, a feat that secured for Neal Armstrong the eternal title of World’s Most Famous Astronaut. In fact, Glenn never came anywhere close to the moon. He is known singularly as the first American — but not the first person — to orbit the earth.
Yet on Feb. 20, 1962, John Glenn became a hero for his time by taking three laps around the Earth, a five-hour journey to immortality. It was a cause for national celebration. In a few brief hours, John Glenn became our generation’s Charles Lindbergh — the stuff of legends.
In the early 1960s, millions of kids wanted to grow up to be astronauts. Today, fewer than three percent have that ambition. By the end of the decade, we landed on the moon and space somehow lost its luster.
To understand that, you must also understand the times.
By the time Glenn joined six other men as the “Mercury Seven,” America’s first astronauts, the United States was locked in a grim and frightful Cold War with Russia. When Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin become the first man in space on April 12, 1961, America wasn’t only fighting the Cold War, it seemed to be losing it. That was simply unthinkable — and unacceptable.
The Mercury Seven was America’s answer. The earliest American missions achieved what Russians had already done — a game of catch-up. Glenn’s three Earth orbits was the first time America went one up on the Russians (two up, you might say, since the Russians had orbited the Earth just once) It restored American confidence and signaled that America would again gain preeminence in space exploration.
Central casting could not have imagined a man better suited for that job. Glenn embodied the American ideal of what a hero should be in the Cold War era. He a man of solid, Mid-Western values — honest, responsible, courageous, humble, determined. His credentials were impeccable — a fighter pilot in two wars and a test pilot before being chosen for the elite group of pilots to become the nation’s first astronauts. He had what Tom Wolfe referred to in his book on those first astronauts as “The Right Stuff.”
Although he was 40 at the time of his historic journey, his close-cropped hair, freckled face and dazzling smile made him the picture of youthful American vigor.
It must also be remembered that those early space voyages were dramatic events. In later years, when tragedy struck space exploration, people were shocked. In Glenn’s era, people were sort of shocked when tragedy didn’t occur. Those first Mercury rockets exploded into space and the world held its breath.
In his moment in time, Glenn became a hero when we believed in the purity of heroes.
By the time Armstrong landed on the moon in July 1969, that era was ending and the era of skepticism had begun. Vietnam had begun to shake our unquestioned belief in our Cold War strategy. Our heroes became human, with human flaws.
In that respect, John Glenn may have been the last of the great, unblemished American heroes.
They don’t make heroes like John Glenn anymore, mainly because we don’t believe in those kinds of heroes anymore.
But we once did, and few seemed more worthy of that honor than John Glenn.
For all of us old enough to remember that, we say, “Thank you, Mr. Glenn and godspeed on your final mission.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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