He was American History

We are still in remembrance mode to remember people who have died recently. We need to remember the dwindling amount of World War ll Veterans that die each year. There is one man determined to keep their stories of heroism alive.  He is a 19 year old from India here in America who started a go fund me page to help with the costs to find the elderly Veterans, interview them, record their combat stories and most of all thank them for their heroic service since these old still brave soldiers are dying at the rate of about 400 per day and they are the not so famous heroes.

A famous hero of America who died this past year was the walking symbol of America in the past century. He risked mortal danger all his life in order to save others. He is John Glenn born in 1921. He was a fighter pilot, astronaut and senator. A man who dedicated his life and work to protecting America through aviation. He died recently at age 95. He even went into space as a senior citizen to test the effects of space travel on senior citizens. He was an American who was in a different league than most of us. He was most famous for his 1962 orbit around the earth. He ran for President, returned to space when he was a 77 year old Senator. More amazingly as a young pilot he even flew with Charles Lindbergh. Few know that they flew together in World War ll in the Pacific.  Where is that Indian guy? Did he interview John Glen about his World War ll stories before he died? I doubt it.

If you don’t remember Charles Lindbergh went from being our most beloved hero after crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a flimsy plane in 1927. He was the father of successful Aviation in America.  Then he was hated during World War ll. Lindbergh had the balls to pebbly speak and campaigned to keep the United States out of World War ll. His efforts for peace went unheard and instead he was denounced as a Nazi sympathizer. Yet by the time the Pearl Harbor disaster happened, he went back into combat yet no branch of the military would accept him. Finally he loaded up his own planes with weapons and flew himself into the middle of the war. He volunteered as a civilian advisor.

Lindbergh went into aerial combat 50 times. He devised a way to deliver payloads of weapons to the Japanese mainland and get the planes back to base without running out of fuel. All of this was done in secret. But not in any book or history document will you find written data about glen’s relationship to Lindbergh.  Glen would verbally talk about that. Glen was one of the hot shot fighter pilots who helped Lindbergh in his project. To me that makes Glen part of our entire history of Aviation in this country and he just died.

The most famous Aviator of the 1920’s and the most famous Astronaut of the in 60’s had a real connection in protecting America in the century.  John Glen was our American hero.