Two Heroes And A Zero!

Two American heroes died over the past two weeks. Lucky them.

John Glenn was a member of the Mercury 7. The first man to orbit the earth. One tough son of a bitch. Glenn was the epitome' of a hero. The word has been so diluted over the past 50 years I am not sure there are any heroes left. Nowadays, you put on a uniform and sit around playing high tech video games in which you actually get to kill people and the only risk is carpal tunnel, and you get called a hero.

John Glenn risked it all. Nobody knew what would happen. But John Glenn risked it all. And for what? His nation? The world? Himself?

John Glenn became a Senator from Ohio. He ran for President in 1984 but never got any traction because by then, real heroes had taken a back seat to made up heroes like Ronald Reagan, a man who never risked a damn thing yet was created by a cynical new breed of bullshit artists. Glenn went on to go back to space at the age of 77 again renewing his hero license. John Glenn died at age 95. The world is worse off because a real hero like John Glenn is gone.

Larry Colburn died last week at age 67. Larry Colburn was also an American hero. Colburn was a chopper gunner during the Vietnam War when his Captain, Hugh Thompson Jr, saw the My Lai Massacre going on beneath them. Thompson landed his chopper between the American soldiers slaughtering innocent Vietnamese civilians and exclaimed "Y'all cover me! If these bastards open up on me or these people, you open up on them. Promise me!" to which gunner Larry Colburn answered "You got it boss, consider it done." A stare down occurred between Colburn and the soldiers. The crew saved numerous civilians that day, including an 8 year old boy clinging to his mother's dead body in a ditch (see pic above for the reunion in 1998) Oh yeah, Larry Colburn was 18 years old that day.

John Glenn and Larry Colburn represent the best of America. It's what we can be. Not what we have become.

Today in America, a band of cowards elected a bona fide fascist bigoted sexual assaulter as President of the United States. This is what we have become. A nation of dim bulbed morons fascinated with reality show clowns who promise them the sun and the moon. John Glenn and Larry Colburn are out there somewhere covering somebody's ass, instead of being one.