Neil Armstrong's Moon Step Triggered 'Giant Leap for Mankind'
The day Neil Armstrong landed on the moon brought tears to the eyes of grown men and goosebumps to the arms of children—and brought Americans together in an era of discord and dissent.
Alan Shepherd took off from Cape Canaveral on May 5, 1961, to became the first American in space, narrowly missing the title of "first man in space" because Soviet cosmonaut Juri Gagarin made one orbit around Earth three weeks earlier. I watched Shepherd's takeoff on a black-and-white television in a motel somewhere in Virginia on a vacation with my mom and dad. I was only 5, but I was able to grasp that this was big. Today, kids often have their own TVs and sometimes even parents opt for cable channels over the news. But as children of the 1960s, we watched what our parents watched on four local channels, three of which offered coverage from the major networks. With a World War II vet for a father, we got a heavy dose of news. It wasn't …
James Dale Barrington
7:33 pm on Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Thanks Zandy for the article. You bring everything in focus. It's a different day than those early days to some extent, but still somewhat the same. We are in a mess. Seeing a logo on an accomplishment as a 'landing on Mars' doesn't strike me with the same intense and euphoric feelings I had then. I had just finished serving in the Army and picked up on my educational venture, which took me … more ›