John Glenn to fly in both the Mercury and Space Shuttle programs. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. He died at the age of 95 in 2016. John Herschel Glenn Jr. was born on July 18, 1921, in Cambridge, Ohio, the son of John Herschel Glenn Sr., who worked for a plumbing firm, and Clara Teresa , a teacher. His parents had married shortly before his father, a member of the American Expeditionary Force, left for the Western Front during World War I. The family moved to New Concord, Ohio, soon after his birth, and his father started his
John Glenn Committee in 1978. He became the chairman of the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee, for which he traveled to Japan, Korea, the Republic of China, and the People's Republic of China. Glenn helped to pass the Taiwan Enabling Act of 1979. The same year, Glenn's stance on the SALT II treaty caused another dispute with President Carter. Due to the loss of radar listening posts in Iran, Glenn did not believe that the U.S. had the capability to monitor the Soviet Union accurately enough to verify compliance with the treaty. During the launching ceremony for the , he spoke