Roy Exum: John Glenn’s ‘Hero’

  • Sunday, December 11, 2016
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

When John Glenn became the first man to orbit earth, the timing was perfect. I was 13 years old at the time, in need of a hero, and I latched on to the astronaut tighter than a tick. All of us boys knew he’d flown 150 missions in fighters in World War II and Korea and, believe me, he was “The Right Stuff” long before the great movie about the Mercy 7 daredevils came out about 30 years later.

I followed Colonel Glenn pretty closely before he died on Thursday at age 95. Yet it was years after his famous flight in 1962 that I learned the best story about him. He had a bigger hero. When John Glenn was about two years old, he was put in a playpen with a little girl the same age named Annie Castor, this in the small Ohio town (New Concord) where they both grew up.

Because they were first introduced as babies, it didn’t bother John a bit that Annie had a huge handicap. She was an ’85 stutterer,’ which means she would get tangled on 85 percent of the words she would try to say, which on average is severe. John, an outgoing athlete as he grew, could have cared less. As a matter of fact, early in high school “I saw Annie in a different way” and she became his first and forever girlfriend, their marriage lasting 73 years until last week.

In 2005 there was a neat deal called the Hero Project, where they got in touch with the great heroes of our time and asked who had most inspired them. Glenn, who had served as a senator for 24 years, didn’t blink before he said, “Annie … it takes guts to operate with a disability. I don’t know if I would have had the courage to do the things she does so well.”

John actually wrote the Hero’s Hero tribute himself and his story was widely acclaimed.

In 1962, a day or two before Glenn would ride the rocket through the atmosphere, Vice President Lyndon Johnson and his huge entourage went to the Glenn house to watch the TV coverage with the astronaut’s wife – not to mention picking the hottest photo-op in history. But as John Glenn sat in the tiny space capsule for five hours before threatening weather scrubbed the launch, Annie sat in the house while the Vice President sat outside in the car – Annie was too ashamed to let him in.

As John wrote, “We can just about guess what the other is thinking, but not everybody saw Annie the way I did; they couldn't get beyond the stuttering to know her for all her talents. In school she never tried out for school plays and was never asked to recite. As Annie got older, everyday tasks and conversations were extremely difficult for her, but she did them with great courage.

“For Annie, stuttering meant not being able to take a taxi because she would have to write out the address and give it to the driver because she couldn't get the words out. It would be too embarrassing to try to talk about where she wanted to go,” he continued.

“Going to the store is a tremendously difficult and frustrating experience when you can't find what you want and can't ask the clerk because you are too embarrassed of your stutter. The telephone is another devil for a stutterer. Most stutterers just won't call anybody. Annie couldn't just pick up the phone and call a friend to chat, or even 911.”

Of course, the Glenns tried everything. “She had been through every type of treatment there was, and they were of very little help to her. It was a tremendous disappointment because she wanted so much to speak normally. Every time she would go through a treatment program or work with a speech therapist it didn't work; with consistent disappointments, she was leery of anything more,” the senator wrote.

“Finally, (in 1973), we were watching the Today show, and a professor, Ron Webster, was talking about the success of his new theory and treatment for stuttering. I turned to Annie, and said, "You should try this because it's brand new." She agreed, and went down to Webster's three-week course in Roanoke, Va. It literally changed her life.”

As Annie remembered, “Those were really hard times for me. In times of difficulty or defeat, it’s easy to think that we really have no choice. That we are trapped. I know I felt that way. Having tried, having failed so many times.”

The therapists made Annie relearn each letter of the alphabet. They forced her to go shopping in a mall. She had to ask questions. It was with as much determination as the United States built the space program.

Her husband wrote, “In her first week, she learned how to speak in slow, short syllables. During the second week, they gradually sped up the rate at which she spoke, working on sounds that are particularly difficult for stutterers. The third week is a continuation of the work learned in the first two weeks.”

Participants in the Roanoke program are not allowed to call home during the program. “When I called John, he cried,” Annie later said in an interview. “People couldn’t believe I could talk!” In Glenn’s autobiography, he remembers one of the first sentences she said back home. “John, I have wanted to tell you this for years … pick up your socks.”

“As soon as she could Annie reached a point where she could represent me in speeches,” the senator wrote, “and speak for others with handicaps. She will always have to work on her speech, but with her courage and determination she overcomes the disability every day with phone calls and normal conversation.”

Glenn’s Hero Project essay continued, “Annie inspired a lot of people to get treatment for their disabilities. Through the American Speech and Hearing Association (ASHA), she would meet with people to tell her story and how she stuck with her treatment. ASHA was impressed enough by Annie's accomplishments that they now give an award in her name. 'The Annie' honors people who overcome great communication difficulties and achieve distinction by helping others.

“Each year we try to make it to the award ceremony, and Annie presents the award. One year, Annie presented the award to James Earl Jones. You would never guess in a thousand years that he was a stutterer by watching him in movie roles, but he, too, has learned to overcome his handicap.

“Along with others like Jones, the recipients of 'The Annie' exemplify the very definition of the word hero. They not only demonstrate tremendous personal strength, but they also choose to use that strength to benefit other people. Despite great difficulties and daily struggles, these individuals don't expect anybody else to take care of them,” his story read.

“We tend to think of heroes as being those who are well known, but America is made up of a whole nation of heroes who face problems that are very difficult, and their courage remains largely unsung. Millions of individuals are heroes in their own right. In my book, Annie is one of those heroes.”

* * *

“I pray every day and I think everybody should. I don't think you can be up here and look out the window as I did the first day and look out at the Earth from this vantage point. We're not so high compared to people who went to the moon and back. But to look out at this kind of creation out here and not believe in God is, to me, impossible. It just strengthens my faith.” – John Glenn.

* * *

“Could this have just happened? . . . I can’t believe that ... Some Power put all this into orbit and keeps it there.” – John Glenn.

* * *

“I don't think many people remember what life was like in those days … This was the era when the Russians were claiming superiority, and they could make a pretty good case — they put up Sputnik in '57; they had already sent men into space to orbit the earth… There was this fear that perhaps communism was the wave of the future. The astronauts, all of us, really believed we were locked in a battle of democracy versus communism, where the winner would dominate the world.” – John Glenn.

* * *

On Feb. 20, 1962, Scott Carpenter, as mission controller, said these never-to-be-forgotten words just as Friendship 7 was about to launch into orbit: “Godspeed, John Glenn.”

royexum@aol.com

Opinion
Capitol Report From State Rep. Greg Vital For March 28
  • 3/28/2024

Budget becomes central focus in final weeks of 113th General Assembly Members of the House Finance, Ways and Means Committee this week were briefed by Finance and Administration Commissioner ... more

Senate Republican Caucus Weekly Wrap March 28
  • 3/28/2024

This week on Capitol Hill lawmakers were hard at work passing meaningful legislation to improve the lives of Tennesseans as the General Assembly begins to wind down. Public safety was a big focus ... more