God speed John Glenn

Col. John Glenn

America has lost one of its true heroes from a bygone era when space exploration was still considered a modern miracle. John Glenn passed December 8 at age 95. He was a highly decorated Marine Corps fighter pilot from World War Two and the Korean War and the first American to orbit the earth at a time when the Russians had already put Sputnik into orbit and we needed to save face.

I met John Glenn when he was running for president in the Democrat Party primary of 1984 on Tybee Island, Georgia near Savannah. He posed with a beauty queen because it was expected and Glenn, always duty bound, did what was necessary to show the world he was both dedicated, sincere and predictable. Someone who could and should be counted on to do the task at hand.

Always a Marine, he went back into space at age 74 in 1998 and was attached to a myriad of devices to test his every bodily function, much like it was in 1962. I was seven-years-old, but I remember watching the black and white RCA TV. The immortal words back then were captured nationally, when only three major channels existed, as the liftoff began: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 …”God speed John Glenn,” said the mission control specialist of NASA after he finished the countdown. Just a few minutes later Glenn radioed back: “Oh the view is tremendous,” he said in genuine awe.

The first man ever to see and say such things about this land where millions strutted about below him filled with the rigors of survival and the arrogance of accomplishing that imperative day-to-day. Glenn never needed to brag, he had grace, not self-importance and boasting wasn’t necessary – ever. His actions spoke for themselves.

When he spotted me on Tybee Island I was still in the Marines on assignment in nearby Fort Stewart and I decided, along with fellow photographer Sergeant Daryl Bennett, to take some R&R and visit Savannah and accidentally the nearby resort island of Tybee. The two of us were dispatched out of the Joint Public Affairs Office in New Orleans, Louisiana. For those geographically challenged, Tybee is really close to another resort island – Parris Island, a “land that God forgot” or so sang the DI during his morning cadence call as we marched to the chow hall at 5 a.m.

I was wearing a T-shirt, gold with red letters stating boldly “USMC” and Glenn looked at it and smiled at me and shook my hand. I will never forget the legend that took a second to recognize his opposite – me, the unknown and obscure “faceless” Marine. Shaking his hand made me feel 10-foot tall.

He could have been dismissive like so many pompous asses that strut through life as if they were the landed gentry and I and others like me merely serfs at their beck and call, but he didn’t do that. He would have made a great president, but some too-liberal guy named Walter Mondale beat him in the primary and then was trounced by some conservative guy named Reagan in a landslide later that year.

Glenn completed 149 combat missions and 9,000 flight hours — thousands more than most military pilots. He earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses and 10 Air Medals. After Korea, he became a test pilot and, in 1957, set a speed record by flying more than 700 miles per hour across the United States in his F-8 fighter jet.

After all that bravery he even went a step further to continue serving his country and braved the BS storm of serving in the U.S. Senate representing Ohio for 24 years from 1975-1999. Glenn was one of the first ever in the newly invented astronaut corps made famous by the movie The Right Stuff, the story of the original Mercury 7 astronauts based on a book by Tom Wolfe.

Yes folks, he was the ultimate man’s man.The kind whose exploits books and movies are made about, yet his boyish grin as he shook my hand is burned into my memory. It showed the gentle man of true strength, revealing the aura of his inherent leadership qualities. Semper Fidelis John Glenn and …God speed. You will be missed, at least by this one Jarhead I see in the mirror every morning and I suspect by millions of other everyday folks.
— Gary Bégin, former Staff Sgt. – USMC photojournalist 1978 – 1984 and CC life member. He is currently the managing editor for NCW Media in Wenatchee, Washington and can be reached at Gary@NCWMedia.net.