JOHN GLENN’S AMERICA

By Edwin Cooney

It was sad to learn last Thursday, December 8th, 2016 of the passing of John Glenn.  It wasn’t really unexpected by me or probably anyone else.  After all, the former Marine, astronaut, and U.S. Senator was 95 years old!  The heart of the discomfort for me was the realization that Mr. Glenn’s death was another sign of the end of an era.  I see it as the era between 1933 and 1969 when Americans, reasonably sure of who they were and where they were going, gave this nation the best of their talents and their patriotism.

John Glenn was a product of small town America and its most sterling values: family, church, school, and neighbors.  Born on Monday, July 18th, 1921 to John and Clara (Sproat) Glenn in Cambridge, Ohio, he was raised to expect the best of himself, an expectation inherited from his parents.  His father was a railroad conductor who also owned a plumbing business. He moved the family to Concord, Ohio when John was very young.  Gifted with a healthy and highly functioning physique, John was an energetic, capable, and industrious lad.  From college on, young Glenn not only participated but would excel in practically everything he did whether it be football and tennis or space exploration and politics.  He deservedly earned recognition and rewards along the way.  Even more significantly, he conducted himself in such a way that all who knew of him never doubted that he was a genuine gentleman which was the foundation of his national status as a hero.

From Muskingum College which he entered in 1939 as a chemistry major, through flight training at the Naval Sea Cadet program, and on into  the Marine Corps, Glenn was an achiever.  He participated in 59 combat missions in World War II and 90 combat missions in Korea where one of his fellow pilots was baseball’s Ted Williams.  In 1957, he flew a F8U Crusader from Los Angeles to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds.  Then, in April of 1959, he joined Alan B. Shepard, Virgil I. Grissom, Walter Schirra, Scott Carpenter, Donald (Deke) Slayton, and Gordon Cooper as America’s Mercury Astronauts.

It was only natural that Colonel Glenn hoped to be the first man shot into space, but that honor went to Al Shepard.  Perhaps Robert Gilruth, the head of NASA, saw Glenn as far more valuable to the program and the nation if he were put on the orbital flight rather than the suborbital flights of Shepard and Grissom.  Glenn’s flight aboard “Friendship Seven” had a huge impact which placed Glenn in the category of “national hero” along with Charles Lindbergh.  That assessment may be legitimately debatable but only among scholars and historians.  To most Americans, John Herschel Glenn Jr. was and remains a national hero.

What makes a man worthy enough to be called a national hero?  Achievement has to be the basis, but there are inevitably elements of personality and circumstance that make a person worthy of heroic status.  In John Glenn’s case, his lack of personal presumption had a lot to do with how much mid 20th century Americans came to love him.  Always reluctant to talk about himself, he always insisted that his national prominence had more to do with the tenuous circumstances in which Americans thought they were living.  He asserted that anyone who was assigned the orbital flight would have been viewed with the favor he enjoyed.

Of course, John Glenn had an ego; without one he could hardly have achieved what he did.  His twenty-four year Senate career and his 1984 quest for the Democratic presidential nomination attest to Glenn’s healthy self-esteem.  However, there are two aspects of his personal life that stand out.

Anna Margaret (Castor) Glenn was John’s sweetheart almost from birth.  As babies, the two often played in the same playpen.  Known as the “doctor’s daughter,” Anna, whom Glenn always called Annie, had a severe stuttering malady.  John, who was exceedingly articulate, was never in the least put off by Annie’s struggle.  He loved her and she was a vital part of his being.  Eventually, Annie had therapy which enabled her to conquer her stuttering to the extent that she was able to give speeches.  Gone were the days when her husband, children, family and friends had to take messages for her or deliver her essential messages to the outside world.  For the Glenns, Annie’s triumph was theirs.

Another perhaps less significant element in Glenn’s character was his rather low-key advocacy of military needs.  His pronouncements lacked that sharp authoritarian military urgency.  His public statements and addresses lacked the biting advocacy and dramatics of most military experts.

John Glenn’s America did what it had to do to survive the perceived Russian threat, but it didn’t panic about it.  America in the late 1950s and early 1960s, John Glenn’s era of prominence, was dutiful in the face of challenge, but it lacked the self-righteousness of today’s patriotism.  John Glenn did his duty. He didn’t revel in it and he most certainly didn’t brag about it.

I’ll never forget the night of Monday, July 12th, 1976 at Madison Square Garden when John Glenn, who was considered a possible vice presidential candidate on Jimmy Carter’s ticket, was assigned to give the first of two keynote addresses to the Democratic National Convention.  Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, a brilliant speaker and the first black woman ever to give a keynote address at a major party convention, would follow Senator Glenn.  Senator Glenn was very articulate, but he was no orator.  Nevertheless he stood on that platform and doggedly performed his assignment.  Many thought that Governor Carter would be watching to see which one of them gave the best address. They thought that Senator Glenn had much more to lose than Barbara Jordan.  In fact, she did give the superior address that night, speaking eloquently to the prevailing urgencies of 1976.  Still, John Glenn, as he usually did, presented practical priorities. His speech may not have had the urgency of Ms. Jordon’s presentation, but it was, after all, reflective of John Glenn’s America.

John Glenn’s America was far from perfect.  The lifestyles of minorities as well as their civil rights were too often the subject of derisive humor. Republicans and Democrats in Congress were very often fast and loyal friends.  Lyndon Johnson often drank scotch in the White House after 5 o’clock with GOP Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen.  Jerry Ford of Grand Rapids, Michigan, would support legislation in Democratic Congressman Carl Albert’s Oklahoma district in exchange for Albert’s support on GOP-sponsored legislation.  Elvis was King.  Muhammad Ali was on the way to being boxing’s king.  Most Americans could go to college without breaking the bank.  Hit songs had tunes and the lyrics were often understandable.  The “British invasion” was still preparing its American onslaught on the Mersey.  Most significant and important, there existed in John Glenn’s America an expectation of public civility that is mostly lacking today.  To suggest that a political opponent ought to be jailed or that a war hero wasn’t really a hero because he was captured by the enemy would have resulted in the certain defeat of such a candidate in John Glenn’s America.

As for the goals of John Glenn’s America, there were several: the successful and peaceful containment of communism; overcoming Jim Crow in the South; the perfection in the packaging, quality and marketing of consumer goods; and putting the American flag on the moon by 1970.  Astronaut Glenn would never get to the moon himself although in 1998 he would become the oldest American to fly in space at the age of 77.  (We’ve since learned that President Kennedy, John Glenn’s friend, kept him from participating in additional space travel because he was simply “too valuable to lose.”)

Of course, John Glenn didn’t create John Glenn’s America, he merely personified it. He made it so memorable that it has become the bedrock of some of our fondest memories!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY