The Right Stuff

by Tom Wolfe

They would feel the change, but they would not be able to put it into words. What was that feeling? Why, it was the gentle slither of the mantle of soldierly glory sliding off one’s shoulders!—and the cooling effect of oceans of tears drying up! The single-combat warriors’ war had been removed. They would continue to be honored, and men would continue to be awed by their courage; but the day when an astronaut could parade up Broadway while traffic policemen wept in the intersections was no more. Never again would an astronaut be perceived as a protector of the people, risking his life to do battle in the heavens. Not even the first American to walk on the moon would ever know the outpouring of a people’s most primal emotions that Shepard, Cooper, and, above all, Glenn had known. The era of America’s first single-combat warriors had come, and it had gone, perhaps never to be relived.