Glenn marks 90th birthday

By William Hershey

Dayton Daily News

COLUMBUS

John H. Glenn was 21 when he went off to fight in World War II.

He was 40 when he became the first American to orbit the Earth.

And he was 77 when he made his second trip into space aboard the space shuttle Discovery.

Next year is the 50th anniversary of Glenn’s historic trip around the Earth on Feb. 20, 1962.

As he marks his 90th birthday today, John Glenn is pursuing another seemingly impossible mission: restarting the nation’s space shuttle program.

As Glenn sees it, ending the program — Atlantis’ current mission is the final one — is just another sign that the country risks losing the lead in science and research that has made it number one in the world .

“That’s good stuff,” Glenn said of the space shuttle and international space station the shuttle serves. “That’s the kind of stuff where we lead the world. We aren’t going to be the world’s leading space-faring nation, as [President John F.] Kennedy termed it, if we lose our lead in this.”

When he met with President Barack Obama last year, Glenn said he made that same case.

“He didn’t disagree with me at all,” said Glenn. “He said there’s just no money to do it, and I said my view was we couldn’t afford not to do it for the future of this country.”

All-American boy

Glenn rarely takes the time for extended interviews with news organizations, but he and his wife of 68 years, Annie, agreed to sit down with the Dayton Daily News for an interview that lasted two hours. The interview took place at the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at Ohio State University, which the Glenns and the university created in 1998 to inspire citizenship and develop public policy leadership.

The school’s focus — citizenship and public policy — may sound corny, but they are the cornerstones for how Glenn thinks and conducts himself.

“He’s the All-American boy, writ large,” said Ohio historian George W. Knepper, author of the definitive “Ohio and Its People. “He’s better than the All-American boy, he’s a Jack Armstrong, plus.”

In his own way, said Knepper, Glenn is a throwback to the industrialists like John D. Rockefeller who made Ohio great in the late 19th century and early 20th century. They had a relentless drive to succeed, said Knepper.

“In his [Glenn’s] case, it was not for monetary gain and status in society through what he owned, but he was just driven by his own compulsion to compete and to excellence,” said Knepper.

As his one-time adversary and later political ally, the late Howard Metzenbaum, once told an interviewer, Glenn is “tough as nails.”

“I take that as a compliment,” said Glenn.

Education concerns

Glenn isn’t known for being demonstrative or outspoken, but he pulled no punches about his concerns that American students in K-12 are falling behind their global competitors in math and science.

Local school boards, thousands of them across the country, don’t seem to be doing the job, he said.

“Each gets elected by promising not to raise taxes,” said Glenn. “We take such pride in local control of education, yet we don’t take the same kind of pride in being responsible enough to provide world-class education.”

Glenn even suggested that the country may need to move toward a national education system — an idea, he admitted, that would have gotten him “run down the steps of the Capitol” had he suggested it while in the Senate.

But, he said, “If you got something that’s not doing it well and we’re going to drop behind other countries and we’re going to take second-rate status in this world, then we better shape up and do what’s required to get it done.”

Bouncing back

Glenn has been getting things done his whole life, but he’s also been knocked down a time or two. He lost the first two times he ran for the U.S. Senate, his 1984 presidential campaign was a flop, and a Senate Ethics Committee investigation of his dealings with savings and loan executive Charles Keating marred his squeaky clean image. In the end, though, the committee criticized him only for bad judgment, and a year after the scandal, he was elected to a record fourth Ohio U.S. Senate term.

“We’ve had things where things didn’t work out,” said Glenn. “That doesn’t end your life.”

Knepper, who is 85, said Glenn’s most impressive feat may have been his second space flight at age 77.

“That gave everybody of a certain age a lift,” he said.

Even Glenn isn’t indestructible. Just last week he had a knee replaced at the Cleveland Clinic, though the prospect of being laid up didn’t diminish his sense of humor. Noting that the surgery came after Annie, 91, had a knee replacement of her own, Glenn quipped: “I sent her out to do it first.”

Co-pilots

John and Annie Glenn were not just high school sweethearts; they were playpen sweethearts, meeting as toddlers in New Concord in Muskingum County where their parents were friends.

Ask Glenn what achievement he’s most proud of — combat duty in World War II and Korea, two flights as an astronaut or four terms in the U.S. Senate — and here’s the answer:

“I guess being married 68 years is a pretty high objective these days.”

Indeed, the Glenns are inseparable, making up for lost time when he was off fighting wars, training for space flights or busy on the Senate floor.

Glenn still pilots his own plane, with Annie serving as his co-pilot. “She shuffles the charts and sets all the radio frequencies,” said Glenn.

“He’s a pretty good teacher,” she added.

Annie still wears the $125 engagement ring he gave her before heading off to flight training.

“We planned to get married when we got out of college. My grand total of wealth at that time was about $150,” he said.

Glenn’s recipe for a long, happy marriage: “Marry above yourself and try to keep up.”

As for retiring, Glenn has no interest in it. He says he’s even up for a third trip into space.

“He’d like to go on another flight,” said Annie.

Added John: “If they said I could go tomorrow morning, I’d go down there.”