[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 107 (Monday, July 18, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1343-E1344]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN GLENN

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. TIM RYAN

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, July 18, 2011

  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I rise to extend my very best birthday 
wishes to the Honorable John Glenn of Ohio on the occasion of his 90th 
birthday.
  John Glenn is an American hero and a true legend. It is difficult to 
believe that today he is celebrating his 90th birthday. He is a hero in 
war, a hero in peace and remains a hero in the hearts of his 
countrymen.
  Growing up in New Concord, Ohio, and attending Muskingum College, he 
was on his way to his girlfriend Annie's organ recital at Brown Chapel 
when he heard the news that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. That 
changed their lives and changed America forever.
  His incomparable life of service began as a Marine Corps fighter 
pilot flying the F4U Corsair in the South Pacific in World II and the 
F9F Panther and F-86 Sabrejet in Korea. In 1957, as part of Project 
Bullet, he made the first supersonic transcontinental flight from 
California to New York in a F8U Crusader.
  In 1959, he was chosen by the recently established National 
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as one of the original 
seven astronauts for Project Mercury. Next February will be the 50th 
Anniversary of John Glenn's orbital flight aboard Friendship Seven. 
Just last month John Glenn and Scott Carpenter, the only two surviving 
Mercury Astronauts reunited at the Smithsonian National Air and Space 
Museum in Washington, D.C., to recollect and discuss their historic 
flights and America's Space program.
  Of course we all know that John Glenn did not end his public service 
at that point. In 1974 he became a U.S Senator from Ohio and served for 
24 years. In 1997, John Glenn announced his retirement from the Senate 
stating that there was no cure for the common birthday. Nonetheless, in 
1998, he returned to space aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery at age 77 
to study the effects of space flight on seniors.
  You can be sure that John Glenn doesn't stand still. He worked to 
establish the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at The Ohio State 
University and he served as Chairman of the National Commission on Math 
and Science Teaching for the 21st Century.
  I have been honored to join him on many occasions at public events in 
Ohio. He is clearly on the side of maintaining our commitment to the 
manned space program and disappointed with the decision to end the 
Space Shuttle Program.
  At 90 he is recovering from a knee replacement but still pilots his 
own plane and admits that his greatest success was not war, space, or 
politics but 68 years of marriage to his childhood sweetheart, Annie.
  Happy Birthday John Glenn. We wish you and Annie all the best.
  Mr. Speaker , I ask unanimous consent that a column by Connie Shultz 
of the Cleveland Plain Dealer be printed following my remarks.

            [From the Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 18, 2011]

                  John Glenn Turns 90: An Appreciation

                          (By Connie Schultz)

        Happy birthday, John Glenn
        Two summers ago, John and Annie Glenn loaded up their 
     Cadillac, pulled out of their driveway in Columbus and headed 
     west for 8,400 miles of unscheduled adventure.
        ``We'd seen the Northwest from the air, but we'd never 
     experienced it on the ground,'' John said. ``We wanted to 
     explore from the road.''
        For a month, they stopped when they felt like it. They 
     took detours whenever the spirit moved them. They made hotel 
     reservations one day at a time, from the road.
        ``It was like one long date,'' Annie told me after their 
     return. ``We just enjoy each other's company so much.''
        John was 88 at the time. Annie was 89. They'd been married 
     66 years by then.
        John Glenn--World War II veteran, the first American to 
     orbit the Earth and Ohio's U.S. senator for 24 years--turns 
     90 today.
        He seems unmoved by the milestone.
        ``Well, you know what they say,'' he said from his 
     hospital room, where he is recovering from knee surgery. ``If 
     I'd known I was going to live this long, I would have taken 
     better care of myself.''
        If there is any person whom Americans--particularly 
     Ohioans--expect to be hale and hearty at 90, it's John Glenn.
        He was 77, after all, when he launched into space for the 
     second time, on the space shuttle Discovery. Not the normal 
     retirement trajectory for a septuagenarian.
        To commemorate John's 90th birthday, LIFE.com has posted 
     an online gallery of 25 previously unpublished photos of 
     Glenn. It is worth a visit, for the photographic glimpses 
     into a fascinating life, and time, in America, and for the 
     narrative that unfolds through the captions, such as this one 
     from a 1964 interview with John:
        A lot of people ask . . . why a man is willing to risk 
     [everything] on something like this. Well, we've got to do 
     it. We're going into an age of exploration that will be 
     bigger than anything the world has ever seen. I guess I'm 
     putting my family up against some risks. I could do other 
     jobs, which might increase my life expectancy. But this could 
     help my kids, too. I want them to be better off than I was as 
     a young man. With risks, you gain.
        John Glenn is still a champion for space exploration. I 
     talked to him on Saturday, four days after his surgery. He 
     was still in the hospital, in some discomfort but refusing to 
     complain.
        Until I asked how he felt about the recent end of the U.S. 
     space shuttle program, that is.
        ``I could talk to you for three hours about that,'' he 
     said. ``The space station is the most unique laboratory we've 
     ever built. The reason we have it is to do research on 
     materials, people, medical matters, pharmaceuticals--the 
     possibilities are nearly endless.
        John Glenn dots the ``i'' in Script Ohio.
        John Glenn dots the i Former Ohio Senator John Glenn dots 
     the i with the alumni

[[Page E1344]]

     band at halftime of the Ohio State-Navy game on Sept. 5.
        ``People keep talking about how we have to go to Mars. We 
     may want to go to Mars sometime. But we should . . . maximize 
     the research return for our efforts [on the Space Station] 
     for people here on Earth.''
        I first met John in 1979, when I was an intern in 
     Washington, D.C. He does not remember our first encounter, of 
     course, which I can hardly hold against him. He was a busy 
     U.S. senator. I was a 22-year-old college kid who couldn't 
     wait to call her dad, who had admired John Glenn all his 
     life.
        Twenty-five years later, John and Annie became my friends 
     after I married then-U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown. In January 
     2007, John escorted Sherrod on the Senate floor for his 
     swearing-in ceremony. Annie, whose gentle advice during the 
     campaign sustained me, held my hand in the Senate gallery.
        It would be wrong to commemorate the remarkable life of 
     John Glenn without also celebrating this woman who has been 
     his wife through all of it. They are virtually inseparable 
     these days, and John is the first to acknowledge that Annie 
     makes life worth living.
        Annie is as engaging as she is generous, full of opinions 
     earned by living life at full throttle, even when she was 
     scared to death. And that is a crucial truth about Annie 
     Glenn. Americans rightly ``ooh'' and ``ahh'' over John 
     Glenn's courage in space, but let us never forget the hero of 
     a wife who gave her public blessing, and then privately 
     prayed until his safe return.
        You don't set out to create a myth or some sort of hero 
     worship around yourself or your colleagues, Glenn told 
     LIFE.com of his years as a test pilot and, especially, as an 
     astronaut. But as it happens, you do become aware of it. Of 
     course you're aware of it. You'd be numb if you weren't aware 
     of it. But honestly, we just tried to live up to it as well 
     as we could.
        The Glenns are planning to hit the road again soon. This 
     time, they want to drive through the American Southwest.
        ``We want to take our time,'' John said. ``We want to see 
     where the road will take us.''
        I am reminded of what his fellow astronaut Scott Carpenter 
     said to John as he lifted off toward the heavens in 1962:
        Godspeed, John Glenn.
        And Annie, too.

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