NEWS

Remembering John Glenn: Why they came

Chrissie Thompson, cthompson@enquirer.com
Sen. John Glenn lies in honor in the rotunda at the Ohio Statehouse. Glenn died Dec. 8. Thousands of people are expected to pay their respects.

COLUMBUS - One by one, they stepped forward to honor the former U.S. senator and astronaut.

All the driving, the parking, the weaving through a cordoned queue – for five quiet seconds, a moment alone in front of John Glenn's casket in the Statehouse rotunda.

When they got there, they couldn't actually see Glenn. They could only see the American flag that draped his casket.  

That's how he would have wanted it.

After Glenn became the first American astronaut to orbit Earth and returned a hero, "he could have done anything that he wanted to do," said Randy Walker, 66, a retired Columbus police officer who brought his grandson along as he paid his respects Friday.

Instead of pursuing fame and celebrity, Glenn kept serving his country. It was all he knew to do.

Glenn: A 'hero for all the right reasons'

"He was such a man of honor, and that's what we're missing in this country," Walker said, through tears.

"Besides my dad, he's the greatest hero that I've ever known."

In 2016, a year of division and uncertainty and even hatred, we long to remember people like Glenn. We long to find a hero who we are sure did the right thing, fought on the right side, made us proud. 

So for hours, people who remembered Glenn, and people who didn't, filed past his casket, which rested at the same spot where mourners passed by President Abraham Lincoln's body 151 years ago. A bust of the president who saved the Union gazed over Glenn's mourners Friday.

Many came from Greater Columbus, astonished they could drive so short a distance to honor such a giant in history. Others crossed the country.

The board that governs use of the Statehouse had to pass an exception to allow Glenn to lie where Lincoln lay – a seemingly ridiculous formality. If anyone embodied the goodness and greatness of the American spirit, it was Glenn.

Glenn's family shared Friday with the people of Ohio and is opening his funeral to them Saturday. They had always shared him. It just seemed right.

So when Annie Glenn entered to see her husband's casket, clutching a tissue, maybe it made sense that whoever was at the front of the line at the time had a 15-minute window into her personal grief. Annie put her hand on her best friend's casket, lowered her head and cried, shoulders shaking. 

"You don't know what it means for you Marines to be here," she told the five-person guard – several of them boys, really – standing watch over the former Marine fighter pilot.

That's when Sgt. Maj. Joseph Gray started to cry.

"I wanted to go and take a knee beside her and tell her, 'You have no idea what it means to us Marines,' " Gray told The Enquirer later. "Everyone knows that Senator and Mrs. Glenn were a team."

Gray, 48, grew up in and near Cape Canaveral, Florida, home to the Kennedy Space Center. He lived and breathed astronauts. Around Cape Canaveral, though, people knew Glenn was different. He truly was made of the Right Stuff.

"First and foremost, he was a servant," Gray said. "It gave hope that there's some purity in the world."

Every time he had the chance, Glenn wrote the note or met with the child. Person after person had their own story Friday.

Columbus' Michelle Artis carried a framed photo of Glenn with her late grandfather, the Rev. Robert S. Jordan Sr., a Chillicothe pastor who had helped to honor Glenn at a youth center banquet in Columbus. 

"My grandfather was a noble man, and so was U.S. Senator Glenn," she said. "There's not a lot of men like that out there any more."

John Glenn accepts an award from the Rev. Robert S. Jordan Sr., a Chillicothe pastor who served on the board for the J. Ashburn Jr. Youth Center in Columbus' Hilltop neighborhood. Jordan's granddaughter brought this photo Friday when she went to the Statehouse to honor Glenn.

We all knew Glenn would die someday. He was human, and he had reached age 95. But somehow it seemed he would always be here. 

Now that he's gone, there are times when we agree with Artis. It feels as though our country has run out of people like Glenn. 

But on Friday, Glenn did what he had always done. He inspired us to believe.

Glenn's mourners shook their heads, wiped their tears and held their heads high. We do have heroes today, they said.

"But we don't honor them," said Columbus' Steven Lindsey, 58, an Army veteran who saluted at Glenn's casket, murmuring a prayer and a thanks for Glenn's service to the country.

Still, there's something different about one person in space. Glenn always gave credit to the NASA engineers who had put him in orbit, but he himself was willing to take on the hopes and fears of a whole country, battling the Soviet Union in the space race.

If Glenn made it up and back home, the whole country could celebrate a victory. If he didn't, well ...

Remember it, or imagine it, along with 30-year-old David Mackey of Columbus: "The entire country focusing on one huge project, and then they stuck him on top of it."

Mackey and his girlfriend, Rachel Martin, brought their 9-month-old daughter, Meredith, dressed in pajamas that looked like a blue NASA flight suit.

Mackey's dream for her? To be an astronaut, of course.