Posted on 10/29/2019 6:05:09 PM PDT by fugazi
If you had to name the ten most-famous Americans ever, who would be on your list? Better yet: if you could go back in time with any of them and have a beer, who would you pick? John Glenn would have to be at the top of my list. He flew combat missions in World War II and Korea, flew alongside baseball great Ted Williams, was one of the original Mercury astronauts, the first American to orbit the earth, was a politician, ran for president, then became the oldest man in space. Man, wouldn't you just kill to hear some of those stories?
The following pages feature historic photos of John H. Glenn Jr., some you might have seen, some you haven't. Hopefully you enjoy reading this slideshow as much as we did writing it.
Maj. Glenn's fighter took so much damage from enemy fire that his fellow aviators nicknamed him "Magnet Ass." Here he stands in front of the F-86 Sabre which he used to kill three enemy MiG-15s. Between World War II and Korea, Glenn flew 149 combat missions and was hit 12 different times. On two occasions, his plane returned with over 250 holes.
Maj. Glenn after scoring his third -- and final -- victory of the Korean War on 23 July 1953. The Marine aviator was temporarily assigned to the Air Force's 25th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, at Suwon (K-13) Air Base in South Korea.
Glenn's North American Aviation F-86F-30-NA Sabre (serial no. 52-4584) at Suwon, 1953. He had the names of his family (daughter Lyn, wife...
(Excerpt) Read more at victoryinstitute.net ...
He bumped others to ride then shuttle. He had no business doing that. I told him that to his face.
got captured, and ultimately became the asshole as we remember him.
It was his political connection that got him on that shuttle flight.
The person who should have been on that flight was Chuck Yeager, a WWII ace, test pilot, who pioneered upper atmospheric flight, broke the sound barrier, built the base line for the Mercury 7.
He wasn’t flashy enough for them to make him an astronaut, but at the time they picked Glenn, he was still qualified and flying jet aircraft, and older than Glenn.
Don’t tell me his politics didn’t have anything to do with picking him.
F 86 was one of my dads birds
I readily do that with Benedict Arnold. I long ago had to do that with John Glenn, and that was a painful thing for me.
I generally like your threads, but don’t think this one will fly.
John Glenn once said that Ted Williams was the best combat fighter pilot he ever saw.
A very interesting claim, but since Glenn ran for President a couple times, he might have said it before the Massachusetts Primary.
Off topic, but interesting....
Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and Jack Nicklaus all actively used “swing visualization” before each pitch or golf stroke.
Each one also said he began doing that as a child before he ever heard someone talk about it.
Nowadays, visualization is a part of coaching in almost every sport.
But, it’s a cool coincidence that three of the greatest ball strikers of all time each “discovered” it on his own.
I had to refresh memory on that choice.
According to Wiki, he became a Brigadier General in 1814, at age 27, and he became a Lieutenant General in 1855, the first one since George Washington.
He retired in 1861 (after the Union lost the First Battle of Bull Run).
I will guess that Scott was the only American to hold General rank for 47 years!
He also sought the Whig Presidential nomination four times, won it in 1852, but lost in the general election.
I have to tell you, this was painful for me to have to reach this conclusion many years ago that John Glenn...John Glenn was a leftist political hack.
I don’t say that because he was a Democrat, I say that because of the things others have said on here.
I used to think Scoop Jackson and Harry Truman were worthy of admiration, but I have found over the years that both of them, at a critical point in our nation’s history, put the well-being of the Democrat Party before the well-being of the Republic, and I find that appalling.
John Glenn did the same thing, and I take no pleasure in saying that.
Sounds remarkably like what the demonratscumbagterrorists did to Charlotte when they held the 2016 commie convention there. Skipped out on the Bills. But the demonratscumbagterrorists that run Charlotte didn’t care. They probably got the taxpayer’s to pay for it.
The problem with Glenn is, he started as a JFK-type Democrat, but allowed the swamp to corrupt him. The Keating Five scandal — where he was associated with another corrupt POS John McCain — only served to drag him irrevocably into the hole and compromised him forever.
My father was a very connected NASA official during the ‘60s and early ‘70s, and I got to meet John Glenn as a child. I idolized him back then, but no more.
One story I head about John Glenn when he decided to get into politics was how he decided what party to adhere to. (Glenn was old-school military publically apolitical until retirement.) The story goes as follows, he offered himself to the Ohio GOP (Rhode’s Organization) they were disinterested. Glenn then offered himself to the Ohio democrat party & the rest is history.
I have no idea if its true but I heard it from a lot of WV GOP’ers. (Friends of my father.)
publically = publicly.
Yeager openly looked down his nose at the NACA fliers that became our first astronauts. Decades later, he said that people had advocated for him to take a flight on the shuttle, but he saw no value in it.
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