Columns: 'They wouldn’t have it any other way'

A week ago Thursday, having nothing better to do since everyone was off to basketball games or other activities, I decided to see what I could find exploring the dish TV channels (they number up to 9999 I believe).

Everyone else has a list of their favorite channels, based on favorite shows so they can quickly check their guide. Not being too much of a TV viewer, I decided to see what was out there on the hundreds of things available.

It was a wasteland of shopping channels, shouting heads, cricket matches and the like. They did have lots of infomercials for balding, obese, do-it-yourselfers who only have to invest in one of the self-improvement courses to move into a top-income bracket and hook up with one of those chatty bikini-clad sirens beckoning from Canada.

I was just about to zap it off when the guide showed “space show.” I clicked “select” and there I was seeing a live show of three astronauts on the Columbia. I hate to confess it, but I wasn’t even aware they were up there.

What a joy it was to sit back with a tall cool one and see three of the happiest young guys I’ve ever seen tell this taxpayer what they were up to.

Early that morning, I had noticed a low-flying plane on the horizon to the West. I wondered if it could be the space shuttle. My wife said she had heard that one was coming back soon and encouraged me to go back to sleep.

As a fan of Uncle Walter Cronkite, I used to stay up for hours during the early days of the space program. Lately, like many of us, I’d sort of drifted away.

Watching the excitement and joy being expressed by David Brown, Michael Anderson and William McCool during the live broadcast, I thought, “These guys are the ‘right stuff’ if ever I saw it.”

Brown, a Navy captain and medical officer, was a pilot trained in high performance aircraft (as the only doctor chosen in 10 years in 1988 he finished top in his flight class two years later). He exuded confidence in the 90 projects in five or six fields of study that they were bringing back in the payload.

Brown was a 46-year-old bachelor and had extra duties assuring the physical health and well-being of the crew, even to making sure their seat straps were properly secure.

Anderson, a lieutenant colonel with 3,000 miles of Army flight time, was a veteran of the Endeavor shuttle hookup with the Russian Mir Station in 1998. He was responsible for the hundreds of experiments involved in the projects as the payload commander.

A resident of Spokane since he was 11, he also graduated from U.W. and had an M.S. in physics from Creighton in Omaha. He was married to a Spokane girl and had two daughters, 9 and 11. He was 43.

McCool, a Navy commander, considered Anacortes his home. He fell in love with the Olympic Peninsula while stationed at Whidbey on two tours. He was a charter member of the Friends of the Olympic National Park 15 years ago.

The 41-year-old McCool was married and had three sons.

The fabulous input by all three as they described experiments which will help cure prostate cancer, help determine the exact measure of spray needed to extinguish fires more rapidly, how to better the dust situation over the plains of Africa ... they couldn’t have been more proud. And well they might be.

Their lives and initial work may be lost, but no way will their heroic contribution be forgotten.

Great as the loss of our brave heroes has been, they’re all made of that same stuff that meets any challenge and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Go with the F.L.O.W. (Ferry Lovers Of Washington).

— Contact Howard Schonberger at 378-5696, or newsroom@sanjuanjournal.com

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