It is a different kind of mission on which five of America’s greatest heroes of flight are now embarked. Instead of breaking the sound barrier, setting foot on the moon or heroically steering a wounded spacecraft back to mother earth, Jim Lovell, Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan, Bob Gilliland and Steve Ritchie are now orbiting the Middle East, touching down at US bases. They want to remind the people who are honoring their commitment to national defense that someone stands behind them, all politics aside.
Neil Armstrong, in particular, has publicly shared his opinion that the US should not take on the burden of being the world’s police force. However, he shows nothing but support when it comes to the individual soldier, sailor, airman or marine. “They were asked to come,” said Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon. “I’m just here to bring them a little bit of home. To tell them that people do appreciate and acknowledge what they’re doing.”
Steve Ritchie, is the only pilot to achieve the title ‘Ace’ in the Vietnam war. He got that for shooting down five enemy planes in dogfights. That was the last time someone earned the moniker. He returned to find a “hostile” segment of the American population that had turned against the fighting men and women because of disagreements with the politicians who sent them to fight. “Being on a college campus was a very unhappy experience,” he told me. “One good thing about this time is that even those who disagree with our policy, seem to, pretty much, support our men and women.”
Ritchie also noted the complexity of the current enemy: the individuals are spread out, hard to define and parents pass the fight down to their children. He called it the most important conflict America has ever engaged.
Jim Lovell, the guy who famously never stood on the moon but steered Apollo 13 back into Earth’s atmosphere, seemed unimpressed with himself. “I’m just a plain old citizen who, in the past perhaps, I did something unusual,” he told me. “I’d like to pass that along to these people who are also unusual and going a good job.” The troops he came to support showed disagreement with Lovell’s ‘pain old’ assessment by packing an auditorium at a forward air base. Sr. Airman Mark Alexander said a visit by these heroic pilots/astronauts does more for him than any actor, athlete or pin up girl. “They’ve been outside the world. People like me in the Air Force, we look up to people like that,” he said.