Fifty Years Later:John Glenn,Marine and Astronaut

Astronaut John Glenn recently concluded his distinguished aviation career when he gave up his pilot's license at the age of 90.It was getting too hard for him to climb into his Beechcraft Baron.Still alert,Senator Glenn,who represented Ohio in the U.S. Senate from 1974-99,attended the fiftieth anniversary commemoration of his first orbital spaceflight by an American on 20 February at the Kennedy Space Center.
Senator Glenn's career in military aviation isn't nearly as well known as his NASA years,yet was outstanding in its own right.He flew 59 combat missions as a U.S. Marine pilot in World War II in an F49 Corsair in the South Pacific.That was followed by 63 combat missions in the Korean War in an F9F Panther jet interceptor,as well as 27 missions in an F-86F Sabre on an exchange program with the U.S. Air Force in that war,downing 3 MiG-15s near the Yalu River just before the truce that obtains to this day.
For his achievements,Senator Glenn was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with two Gold Stars and two Oak Leaf Clusters;an Air Medal with three Silver Stars and two Oak Leaf Clusters;and an Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with one Bronze Star.He also received two Presidential Unit Citations,one for the United States and the other for Korea.
As well as orbiting the earth three times in a Mercury space capsule in February,1962,Senator Glenn became the oldest astronaut to fly in space when he joined the crew of the space shuttle Discovery in 1998 at age 77.On that flight,he was the subject of a biomedical evaluation of the effect of spaceflight on the elderly,with his 1962 space flight serving as a baseline for the study.Initially opposed to women being astronauts,he changed his mind about that and delivered a stirring tribute to Mission Specialist Judith Resnik,the second American woman in space,who tragically died in the space shuttle Challenger disaster on 28 January,1986.
For his storied accomplishments,Senator Glenn was also honored with the Congressional Gold Medal and the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.