Riding Rockets

It was great fun until a particularly wicked aerial mortar fell off its stand. Balls of fire spewed into the crowd. There were shrieks of panic as mothers swept up children and hustled them behind the cabin walls. I flattened myself behind Fisher’s canoe (finally extracted from the tree) as one ball whistled by my head. I was quickly joined by my son, Pat. With fear swimming in his eyes, he exclaimed, “Dad, don’t you think this is kind of dangerous?” Even a ten-year-old could sense the idiocy of our play. We had become the kids. We were bulletproof. We were immortal. We were astronauts.

After the last bomb had exploded and the kids were asleep, the adults settled around a fire. We were growing close. Our competitiveness and the differences in personality (militant feminists to sexist pigs; propeller-headed scientists to Chuck Yeager clones) would ultimately strain relationships. It was impossible to throw thirty-five people together and not have some acrimony. But, like the fear the wives couldn’t yet see, it was still too early for the enmity to get in the way of our fun.

As a sign of our closeness, we now had our class name: TFNGs. There was no official requirement that a new class of astronauts name themselves. It just happened. TheMercury 7 astronauts had become the “Original Seven.” The class of 1984 would later become known as “Maggots,” a play on the derogatory term that marine drill instructors used in reference to their new recruits. None of these names were ever formally put to a vote. Only through constant usage were they legitimized. For us, TFNG stuck. In polite company it translated to Thirty-Five New Guys. Not very creative, it would seem. However, it was actually a twist on an obscene military term. In every military unit a new person was a FNG, a “fucking new guy.” You remained a FNG until someone newer showed up, then they became the FNG. While the public knew us as the Thirty-Five New Guys, we knew ourselves as The Fucking New Guys.

Deep in the heart of Texas, the fire crackled and glowing embers swirled skyward. More beers were popped. Brewster Shaw strummed his guitar to an Eagles tune as our talk turned, as it always did, to when we might fly in space. Like teenagers wishing for Saturday night to arrive, we wished for miracles to speed us to our launches. Our dreams were of the incredible things we would do. We would fly missions into polar orbits and fly jet packs on tetherless spacewalks. We would carry every science satellite, every military satellite, every communication satellite. We would use a robot arm to grapple satellites and repair them in orbit. We were going to do it all…The Fucking New Guys.

With the dream talk circling the fire I looked into the star-spangled night and felt supremely happy…but only for a moment. I was too seasoned not to know there would be tears on this journey. Some at this very campfire would die as astronauts. Perhaps I would, I thought. Perhaps in one of NASA’s training jets. Perhaps on a space shuttle. It wasn’t hearing theApollo I voice tapes those many months ago that now brought on this melancholy. It was a much more intimate experience with death in the sky.

Christmas season, 1972. I was twenty-seven years old, stationed in England and flying in the backseat of RF-4Cs as part of the Allied Forces staring down the Russian threat. Jim Humphrey and Tom Carr were in the squadron planning area. We were kibitzing over coffee as they put the finishing touches on their training maps. I handed Jim my BX cigarette ration cards. I didn’t smoke and he did. He thanked me. Then he and Tom headed for their plane. It was the last time I would see them alive. Shortly after takeoff their Phantom inexplicably nosedived into the earth at 400 miles per hour. There had been no distress call. The squadron commander came into the ready room and told us of the crash. “Stay off the phones,” he ordered, then departed to pick up the chaplain and drive to inform the wives.

I worried for Donna. In a couple minutes she was going to see a staff car drive up to the apartment with the squadron commander and chaplain. Every apartment in the complex housed a flyer’s family. Donna and I shared a wall with the Humphreys. Our entry sidewalks were fifteen feet apart. I could just imagine the two uniformed officers hesitating between those concrete ribbons, checking the address before choosing one. I could see Donna and Eurlene Humphrey watching in horror from their windows, wondering which one of them was the new widow.

Screw the commander’s order,I thought. I grabbed a phone and called Donna. “There’s been a crash. Jim Humphrey and Tom Carr are dead. The chaplain will be there soon. I wanted you to know it wasn’t me. Go visit Eurlene as soon as they leave. Don’t call anybody else.” She was sobbing as I hung up the phone. Eurlene had two small children.