On December 8, the news bulletin came across that former
astronaut, war hero and U.S. Senator John Glenn died at age 95 in Columbus,
Ohio. The tributes and obituaries recorded that Glenn was born in Cambridge,
Ohio and married his childhood sweetheart Annie while both were attending Muskingum college in Ohio. He entered World War II in 1943 as a Marine fighter pilot. In that war and the Korean War, Glenn flew 149
combat missions and was awarded six Distinguished Flying Crosses.
After the Korean War, Glenn became one of the military’s top
test pilots and established a record by flying a Vaught Crusader jet fighter at
supersonic speed from New York to Los Angeles in 3 hours and 23 minutes in
1957. In 1959, Glenn and six other military pilots were named as the first
group of astronauts in Project Mercury with the mission to place a man in earth
orbit.
My personal connection with John Glenn is through my father
Neil Collins who was a public relations executive with North American Aviation
located in Columbus during the 1950s. North American developed and built some
of the U.S. military’s top fighter aircraft during World War II and the Cold
War era including the P-51 Mustang, which was a stalwart in World War !!, the
F-86 which was used in the Korean War, and the F-100, the first fighter capable
of supersonic speeds.
While at North American, my dad got to know John Glenn and
they became professional acquaintances. When I was three or four years old, dad
brought Glenn to our house for dinner. I don’t remember it, but my older
brother Neil, who was about eight, has told me about mom furiously cooking and
cleaning the house and warning him and my other brother Ed to be on their best
behavior because a very special visitor was coming.
Neil recounts how impressive then Colonel Glenn looked when
he arrived at out house in a full dress Marine uniform.
When Glenn became a Project Mercury astronaut, he and dad
kept up their professional relationship. The seven original astronauts were only
paid standard military pay for their rank even though they participated in the intense
training of the potentially dangerous Project Mercury program. But, the
astronauts were allowed to earn extra flight status pay, provided they could
log enough hours in the air each month.
So, my dad said Glenn called him a number of times from
Florida or Houston to set up an appointment to visit the plant in Columbus and
have lunch. This way, Glenn could log several hours of flight time, get a
briefing on new aircraft technology and return home that evening.
On February 20, 1962, Glenn rode into orbit in the Mercury
space capsule dubbed “Friendship 7” atop an Atlas rocket. A little less than
four hours later, Glenn’s spacecraft splashed down safely in the Atlantic after
three orbits.
That day, I was in the eighth grade at St. Catharine’s
school in Columbus. Our class watched the launch on television and cheered when
it was announced that Friendship 7 was in orbit. There was a reporter from WBNS
radio in Columbus with us. He had a portable tape recorder and asked several of us
what we thought about the launch.
At our house, we were very much aware of news because of dad’s
job and his involvement in a defense company during the Cold War era. When the
Soviet Union launched the first satellite (Sputnik) in 1957 and sent the first
man (Yuri Gagarin) into orbit in 1961, I remember the concerned look on my dad’s face and
reading and hearing multiple news accounts of how the Russians had beaten us
into space.
The day of Glenn’s flight, I commented to the reporter that the
successful mission would increase U.S. prestige around the world. That evening,
on the WBNS evening news, I heard my voice on the radio because the reporter
chose to use my sound bite. So, my career in broadcasting had begun.
Fast forward about 20 years later and Sen. Glenn was
scheduled to deliver a fundraising speech in Akron. The day of the speech, the
PBS program “The MacNeil/Lehrer Report” wanted to interview with him about some
pending legislation. So, Robin MacNeil interviewed him that afternoon via
satellite from our studio at the University of Akron. When Glenn arrived, he
made a point of asking me about my mom and dad and we had a short conversation
in the studio before the interview.
A couple of years later I visited Senator Glenn’s office in
Washington, D.C. Another producer and I went to the Capitol to interview
several area congressmen and Sen. Glenn for a documentary on how Congress
affected Northeast Ohio. After we shot the interview, Glenn and I had another
pleasant conversation about my family and the space program.
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| A younger, thinner me with Sen. Glenn at his Senate office. |
The last time I saw him in person was in 1998, the year he
retired from the U.S. Senate after serving four terms representing Ohio. Pam
and I attended a mid-day speech he gave at a restaurant ballroom in Akron. The
place was packed and you could feel the admiration for him from the audience of
about 1,000 as he delivered his speech. Afterwards, I tried to get to the front
of the room to say hello, but he was surrounded by reporters and well-wishers.
Pam and I had both taken extended lunch hours from work to hear the speech, so
we didn’t have time to wait around for a chance to see him.
He is the last of the original seven Mercury astronauts to
die and he will be missed by his wife of 73 years, Annie, his family, and by
the people of our state and the nation. He was truly an American hero and a
devoted public servant. When he was launched into orbit in 1962, the ground
communicator said as the rocket lifted off the launch pad, “Godspeed, John
Glenn.”
Yes, John Glenn, Godspeed indeed.
