The Last Full Measure of Devotion

Someone once defined military veterans as those who recognize that love of God, fellow man, and country is the willingness to write a blank check, payable for an amount up to the last full measure of devotion: life itself.

On August 16, 1960, Colonel Joe Kittinger proved his willingness to write such a check by ascending in a helium balloon to an altitude of 102,800 feet — almost twenty miles.

I was mesmerized by the story of Col. Kittinger's "Man-High" missions, which I read in a book of adventures that I found in the Middle School library (I was in seventh or eighth grade).

A few recollections from that long-ago reading experience (50 years ago):

Kittenger made several jumps, at increasing altitudes.
The aluminum "capsule" in which he rode got fearsomely hot as he sat in it while waiting for the launch. Someone hit on the idea of packing dry ice around the top of the capsule to keep him cool.
On the morning of the launch, he accidentally triggered his parachute while waiting on the ground. Because of budget issues, he knew that if he alerted the ground crew to this fact, they would scrub the launch, and the mission would be canceled forever. Therefore, he re-packed the partially-deployed parachute inside the closed capsule, which was the size of a phone booth.
When he stepped out of the capsule at 102,000 feet, his first thought was that something must have gone wrong with the force of gravity, because he experienced no sensation of motion whatsoever. No sound of wind, no feeling of air, nothing, just weightlessness and silence. He was able to swing his head and helmet far enough to look back up at the balloon, which appeared to be shooting upward. At that point, he realized that gravity was still working.
The ground crew had not done a complete job of sealing his pressure suit against loss of air, and as a result one of his hands swelled to twice its proper size due to exposure to vacuum. It eventually came back to normal, with no permanent damage.

BTW, I had the opportunity to visit that very middle school a few years ago. Looked for the book... of course, it was long gone, and nothing of its ilk was there in its place.

Many don’t realize that Colonel Kittinger later returned to the “operational” Air Force and served three tours in Vietnam. On his last tour, just days before he was scheduled to rotate back to the states, Kittinger’s F-4 Phantom was shot down over North Vietnam, and he spent 11 months in the Hanoi Hilton.

A true Air Force hero and legend.

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