"They will be mourned by a Mother Earth"

Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin's bootprint. Aldrin photographed this bootprint about an hour into their lunar extra-vehicular activity on July 20, 1969, as part of investigations into the soil mechanics of the lunar surface. This photo would later become synonymous with humankind's venture into space.

To commemorate the 45th anniversary of Buzz Aldrin’s and the late Neil Armstrong’s landing on the Moon I decided to post something a little unorthodox. Recently, a speech that President Richard Nixon had prepared if tragedy struck the Apollo 11 crew was declassified. The speech was a backup if the 2 men were to become stranded on the lunar surface with no hope of return.

"Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

"These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding. They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.

"In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man. In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

"Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.

"For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind."    Source: SPACE.com

Morbid, yes, but I find the sentiment beautiful. Above all, it helps to illiterate the true dangers involved and that a successful mission was never a guarantee. The crew of Apollo 11, and astronauts before them and many after, knew the risks and stripped in anyway.  I think it is easy for our generation to blow this off as “been there, done that,” but just keep in mind kids, this complex mission relayed on an on-board computer less capable then the 1st generation iphone.

Scotty

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The Things We Carry

I just finished a book called “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien.  It’s a series of stories derived from the author’s personal experiences during the Vietnam War.  I found it haunting, but not in the way you think.  O’Brien shows great courage in writing a very detailed and honest depiction of the war from his own memory.  The depictions of the mangled dead and the men’s gruesome acts were heard to listen to but this was not what made it so disturbing to me.  Like the author confesses, with so much bloodshed it was not long before I became num.  Much like someone watching a horror movie, I would imagine, it stops having meaning, it’s senseless.

What shook me to the core was when he wrote about the transition home.  He depicted one of his comrades in a short story driving around a 7-mile lake in his home town, pulling over every so often when he saw someone he knew.  This man wanted to tell his friends and family about the war, the medals he had won, and the friends he lost but he could never find the words. He felt that people could never really understand.  He reminded me of Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye, misunderstood and longing for someone to listen, but no one does.  After this story, the author tells the actual story of his friend.  He never truly came back; he was never able to truly relate to anyone. This curses him with a deep loneliness. After a game of basketball at the local YMCA with some of his high school friends, he went into the locker room and hung himself.  

J.D. Salinger, who fought on the beaches of Normandy, and O’Brien both brilliantly illustrated war, or rather, the complex emotions derived from the things that can’t be unseen. Not through depicting honor and courage or death and carnage but by describing the void created, the vacuum.  The loneliness of knowing that few will ever be able to understand, to understand what has been seen and felt.

This keeps me up tonight.

Scotty 

Del Rio Introspection

Del Rio nights leaves something to be desired, quiet, as is my mind, filled only of my own thoughts, which scars me. There was a time where I felt that being emotional was to be weak, strange even.  Though I no longer think it is weak, I still feel it is quite strange. Even stranger still, I have come to realize how usual my lack of emotion is.  I see its value yet I possess very little.  I have grown to be fascinated by other capacity to feel, envious even. Selfishly, I think this is why I am drawn to my current occupation.  A broad array of emotions are amplified in such a place making even the least empathic among us feel something.  I share in some of peoples most intimate and weakest moments without ever having to return the favor. What does this say of me? Well, I think that is enough introspection for one night. 

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