11. The Perfect All-American?
John Herschel Glenn Jr. was a national icon who personified the American dream, and led an extraordinary and extraordinarily full life. Born in Ohio in 1921, he was raised in a bucolic setting that he likened to a Norman Rockwell painting. Adventurous from an early age, Glenn was fascinated with flying. When he got his first plane ride in an open cockpit biplane at age eight, he was hooked on flight. It spurred a lifelong passion, and a career in which he allowed no obstacle or pressure to keep him from greatness at whatever he put his hand and mind to.
Glenn was a US Marine aviator who flew piston engine fighters in WWII, and jet fighters in the Korean War. He received seventeen Air Medals, six Distinguished Flying Crosses, a Congressional Space Medal of Honor, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. A daredevil test pilot and NASA astronaut, Glenn was the first American to orbit Earth. He then became a millionaire businessman, a United States Senator, and at age 77, became a NASA astronaut once again. Well into his eighties, Glenn continued to fly a twin-engine airplane, drove a snazzy convertible, and speed-walked for miles around his neighborhood nearly every day.
