Magnificent Desolation_ The Long Journey Home From the Moon - Buzz Aldrin [33]
It was a relatively short speech in which I wanted to recognize the tremendous commitment it took on the part of our government and the hundreds of thousands of people all across our country working together to get us to the moon, while laying out a vision for the future. I told the joint session of Congress, “This should give all of us hope and inspiration to overcome some of the more difficult problems here on Earth. The Apollo lesson is that national goals can be met where there is a strong enough will to do so.” The audience responded with a rousing and gratifying ovation.
THE DAY PRIOR to appearing before Congress, the Washington, D.C., post office hosted Neil, Mike, and me for the unveiling of a special postage stamp commemorating the mission of Apollo 11 and our landing on the moon. That sounded exciting enough, until the new stamp was revealed and, under a drawing of Neil stepping off the Eagle onto the lunar surface, the caption read, FIRST MAN ON THE MOON. I smiled rather weakly when I first saw the stamp, though it was a bittersweet honor. I didn’t even dare to think what Mike must have thought, but it seemed to me that something referring to “first men” would have been more accurate and more appropriate. As it was, our being there felt like we were backup singers for Elvis.
I wasn’t upset about the stamp; it just felt odd, especially when the post office asked Neil, Mike, and me to sign a large number of first-edition sheets of stamps that would then be sold. I thought, Why would you want me to sign this if you didn’t think it important to include Mike and me somehow? But we dutifully signed a large stack of first-day issues, because, after all, that’s what American heroes do.
If I was mildly disappointed by the post office’s callous exclusion, my father was furious. He set about on a one-man crusade to get the stamp caption changed to “First Men on the Moon.” He even spent some time picketing in front of the White House, but his efforts proved more a source of amusement for the media than an encouragement for including Mike and me in the honor. I just shrugged. What was done was done.
NEIL’S FAMOUS WORDS upon our landing set the theme for our worldwide goodwill tour to be known as “Operation Giant Step.” We stopped first at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a rather odd place to begin a world tour. It was the fall of 1969, and student protests were common on American campuses. Some young people were bitter and angry over the war in Vietnam; others had their own agendas. Nevertheless, I would never have imagined that as Mike, Neil, and I approached the auditorium, we’d be pelted by a barrage of eggs and tomatoes. Fortunately the students were lousy shots and none of us were hit, but I felt sad that these young people could be so disgruntled with America. Rather than being proud of us for going to the moon, they chided us for wasting so much money while wars and famine plagued parts of the Earth. This was a different America than the one to which my father and the heroes of World War II came home.
We were on the world tour for forty-five days. During that time we visited twenty-three countries, as well as the Vatican, and were received by twenty heads of state, including presidents, kings and queens, and prime ministers. To each we presented a replica of the plaque we left on the moon, which stated, WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND. Everywhere we traveled, throngs of people swarmed the streets in an effort to see us. It was truly a heartwarming experience, but after a while we began to feel a bit like circus animals on display. We greeted several million people in twenty-seven cities directly, and many millions more through television, radio, and the press. And