My Father’s 100th Birthday: A Tale Of Two ID Badges

Keith’s note: I spent some time in Washington, DC this morning at the World War II memorial. My father was born 100 years ago today. We lost him a few years ago at age 95. He was a WWII vet. I thought this was an appropriate time to finally visit this hallowed place. As I have written previously my father – barely out of his teens – came within a matter of feet from possible death during a V-2 attack on London in 1945. He was injured physically – and that healed. But the emotional scars stayed with him until he drew his last breath – in my arms. As I also noted – the direct descendants of the thing that nearly killed my father – and thus almost preventing me from ever existing – gave my life purpose as a child and totally directed the course of my career. More Below
I am 67. I am proud to have worked alongside – and then inside – NASA for a decade – and then in my present capacity for several more decades. Many of my cohorts at NASA joined at a time when the young kids of Apollo were now seasoned veterans – and our mentors. For me, growing up, World War II was closer in time than 9-11 is to us today – and certainly quite real to my father. That war – and the experiences that led to the formation of NASA and all that it accomplished had fundamental links to that war. As such it was always something we’d ponder when it came time to ponder such things.
Now, history happens much faster and then becomes old news even faster. Events affecting the entire world happen – and become known by everyone – before lunch time every day. The Apollo program used to be a hinge in history for space folks – something akin to measuring time as B.C. and A.D. Now the Apollo landings are so distant that the vast majority of humanity did not see it happen with their own eyes. Indeed, many actually seek proof that it even happened. Now we are going back. Stay tuned.
I am a space history resonance junkie. Whether it was working on the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery project, the ISEE-3 Reboot project, the NASA Risk and Exploration Symposium, serving on the Challenger Center board, or taking an Apollo 11 Moon rock to Nepal (sending it up to Mt. Everest and then to the International Space Station) I have always felt that it was important to seek out and renew these links to our collective space past. I certainly hope that Artemis does that with regard to Apollo. But more importantly, as we recall our past, we must strive to exceed it and build upon it – and not just use it as a temporary meme on social media.
I have lived and worked in the Washington, DC Metro area for nearly 40 years. The monuments and museums and culture are all commonplace things for me. However there are several places that I have never visited – places I actually watched being built and could have gone to any time over the past decades. The reason for not going was simple: I felt that I needed to visit them at a certain time for an important reason such that I left with the most complete experience possible.
One place is the Holocaust Museum. To be honest I have been tempted – increasingly so – of late. The V-2 that nearly killed my father was built by thousands of Nazi slaves. Between this anniversary of my father’s life and the horrors unfolding once again in Europe, perhaps it is time to finally visit.
The other place I have never visited is the World War II memorial. My Dad always wanted to come see it. That experience profoundly shaped his entire life. And as other vets started to die off he still kept on going working on things in remembrance of the war. My Dad was part of the “Antique Veterans” in Meriden, Connecticut who’d go to funerals in my home town when there was no one else left alive to go and render salutes. He helped get memorials set up – and maintained – as well. But one thing or another derailed that plan to visit the DC memorial. Then his Alzheimer’s made that impractical. He died a few weeks short of his 95th birthday – never having visited the memorial.
Today would have been my father, Kenneth P. Cowing’s 100th birthday. My wife and I made the trip into town – to the memorial. I brought one of my Dad’s dog tags and a shell casing fired by the Antique Veterans at his funeral. And I brought my old, battered (and yes, officially voided) NASA badge. My Dad was wearing this dog tag when a rocket fell from space and nearly killed him. And now his son’s old NASA badge – as an avatar of sorts – has been to both of planet Earth’s high/low, north/south extremes – plus outer space itself on a rocket directly descended from that V-2.
Again, I have had a career based on the peaceful side of a technology that could have also prevented it from ever happening. Yea, I’m really into historic resonances because I embody a rather large one myself. And as I stood there all of the stories of my friends’ fathers’ passings flashed before me. Alas no one remotely old enough to be a WWII vet was in sight today. There are not many of them left.
I am a space boomer – one of the first generation to grow up knowing of space travel only as reality – not science fiction. Our collective grandchildren now know of no time when humans did not live permanently in space. It was also one where these magical tools were derived from weapons of mass destruction. When we once again set foot on another world, let us do so based on a legacy of peaceful cooperation and healthy competition – not as the result of fearing space warfare or petty terrestrial temper tantrums.
Ad Astra y’all.
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