John Glenn is Dead

And the Senator-Astronaut is likely one of the very last "Non-Partisan Across the Board Achievement Driven" National Heroes.
Which is ironic given the fact that Astronaut Glenn in the wake of his Mercury Flight in 1962 was lavishly politically courted by President Kennedy, indeed Glenn was a reliable factotum for Bobby Kennedy in campaign 1968 and in due course Glenn was the democratic senator from Ohio.
He never lost that weird halo of ability and rectitude despite a public life given over to explicit partisanship.
I met Glenn during his doomed 1984 Presidential Campaign, he was a veritable 38 Caliber Bullet of a. Man, short and compact (Mercury Astronauts had strict height requirements in order to fit into those cramped primitive space capsules) to say the least. Let me say this though, if Jimmy Carter exuded piety, if George McGovern radiated sincerity, then John Glenn was incandescently Self Confident, he was viscerally fearless putting his fate in the hands of faith, training and the American Way Quite Literally. He made Ronald Reagan look like an indecisive self doubting wretch by comparison.
And the symbolism of his quiet death at the tail end of this doomed year of 2016 should be lost on no one, it is never ever a good a Good Thing for the rest of us when Our Heroes Start Ascending to Valhalla en masse.