The Air Force assigned my father in 1961 to serve as a chaplain in Alaska for 1 year. His wife Suzanne and their youngsters, Brenda, Chris, and me, stayed behind in Pennsylvania. Dad’s reports on “men in isolation”—those manning lonely radar sites—soon swayed the Air Force to station him next at Florida’s Cape Canaveral, where he met or ministered to all six of the “Mercury 7” (astronauts Shepard through Cooper, left) who flew solo on America’s first spaceflights. In turn, the sixth Mercury astronaut, Gordon Cooper (lower right) and then a future Gemini astronaut, Tom Stafford, ministered to me—as these former Scouts took turns handing me my Cub Scout awards. They also interested me in becoming an Eagle Scout and in pursuing a science career. After Mercury “solo” spaceflights ended, our family transferred to Morón Air Force Base in Spain. There in 1967, we learned the sad news that the second Mercury astronaut and our former church usher, “Gus” Grissom (upper right), had perished in a fire back in Florida during a prelaunch test of Apollo 1. (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
The Air Force assigned my father in 1961 to serve as a chaplain in Alaska for 1 year. His wife Suzanne and their youngsters, Brenda, Chris, and me, stayed behind in Pennsylvania. Dad’s reports on “men in isolation”—those manning lonely radar sites—soon swayed the Air Force to station him next at Florida’s Cape Canaveral, where he met or ministered to all six of the “Mercury 7” (astronauts Shepard through Cooper, left) who flew solo on America’s first spaceflights. In turn, the sixth Mercury astronaut, Gordon Cooper (lower right) and then a future Gemini astronaut, Tom Stafford, ministered to me—as these former Scouts took turns handing me my Cub Scout awards. They also interested me in becoming an Eagle Scout and in pursuing a science career. After Mercury “solo” spaceflights ended, our family transferred to Morón Air Force Base in Spain. There in 1967, we learned the sad news that the second Mercury astronaut and our former church usher, “Gus” Grissom (upper right), had perished in a fire back in Florida during a prelaunch test of Apollo 1. (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
George S. Bause, M.D., M.P.H., Clinical Associate Professor, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.
