During my eight month deployment to Afghanistan with the U.S. Navy, I had the rare and exciting opportunity to meet three astronauts, each an American space exploration legend, at Camp Eggers, Kabul.
Amongst the cadre of Navy veterans was Neil Armstrong, who passed away Aug. 25.
Neil Armstrong will forever be remembered in the annals of world history as the first man ever to set foot on the moon in 1969 as the commander of Apollo 11.
Accompanying Armstrong on this USO sponsored event was Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon as commander of the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, and Jim Lovell, commander of Apollo 13 which experienced critical systems failures causing its scheduled moon landing to be aborted as the crew miraculously limped its broken spacecraft safely back to earth in 1970. The event was chronicled in the successful 1995 film “Apollo 13” starring Tom Hanks, who portrayed Lovell.
The astronauts graciously shared recollections of their out-of-this-world (literally) experiences and participated in a question and answer session moderated by TV personality David Hartman.
After the event was completed, my shipmates Chief Bill Clark, also from Connecticut, and Senior Chief Homero Carrillo of California and I presented each astronaut a Camp Eggers’ Chiefs’ Mess coin as a token of thanks for their visit, and admiration for their accomplishments. The “awarding” of coins is common amongst military commands and individual service members when recognition is warranted but not in an official capacity.
It was awesome to meet and shake the hands of true American icons and space pioneers. The audience of approximately one hundred service members were pretty much awestruck by the astronaut’s presence and moral was sky-high that day. It was one of those events in life that we’ll never forget.
I learned of Armstrong’s passing through my Facebook page where friends from Camp Eggers were posting photographs of the astronauts and paying tribute to them.
These are not ordinary men. Those who got to see them, hear them speak and get photographs of them will never forget what a privilege it was and how much it meant to each one of us.
These men, in their 70s and 80s, traveled thousands of miles and were being hurriedly ushered from camp to camp in armored vehicles just so that we could have a few hours of distraction from the daily grind of serving in a war zone. They are men of the highest caliber.
We are all sorry to hear of Neil Armstrong’s passing but in the best of Navy traditions, we wish him Fair Winds and Following Seas.
The writer lives in Ansonia.
