Perhaps one of the most distinguished and certainly one of the most recognizable people in American history spoke humbly of his life accomplishments and reviewed Obama's first 100 days earlier this month.

On April 9, 2009 - 50 years ago this month - John Glenn was named a member of the Mercury 7, the United States' first astronauts. Glenn grew up in the village of New Concord - a small, college town in southeastern Ohio. He was a member of the village band and eventually a student at Muskingum College.



Since those days, his name has been one that is familiar to most anyone. He was a fighter pilot, a test pilot, one of America's first astronauts, the first man to orbit earth in space, an Ohio senator, a presidential candidate and later the oldest man to fly in space.

"It's hard for me to believe it's been that long," he said. "Part of that is because it seems to vivid to me."

One thing made clear by speaking with Glenn is his keen interest in politics and history. In fact, Glenn, a former Ohio Senator from 1974 to 1999, ran for president in 1984 but was unsuccessful. A close friend of the Kennedy family, Glenn was with Robert Kennedy when President John Kennedy was assassinated in Texas.

Glenn campaigned for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004 and President Barack Obama in 2008. Glenn has said Obama is "doing an exceptional job" dealing with America's economic crisis.

"I can't speak with any certainty about the economy, because nobody knows what's going to happen, and I think we had to do something because this was the biggest drift down since the Great Depression."
Glenn's father was a plumber without work during those days. Eventually, Glenn explained, he found work through Roosevelt's Work Projects Administration program.

"There were things like that that really primed the pump and helped things and it took awhile," he said. "We didn't recover for many years after that"

Pundits have already started rating and reviewing Obama's first 100 days in office with mixed reviews.

"I think he had to do something and I certainly hope this works," Glenn said. "What he's doing to try and prime the pump now is running up an enormous national debt that we're going to have to deal with, but that's something I think he had to do. I don't think we could let this thing go the way it was. Even in just the last few weeks here I've noticed in the papers and magazines a lot of talk now about that this is a recovery that is starting and things like that and I certainly hope it's true."

Glenn's service was marked most notably for his work in foreign policy. While in office, Glenn was the chief author of the 1978 Nonproliferation Act and served as the chairman of the Committee on Governmental Affairs from 1987 until 1995, and sat on the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees.

"I think his first foray into foreign policy in Europe and Turkey and those areas has been a big success from everything I can read," Glenn said.

Obama's effort to reduce the amount of nuclear weapons in the world "strikes a very responsive cord with me because that was one of the areas I worked very hard on all the time I was in the Senate, nuclear nonproliferation."

Glenn serves on Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, which he explained has met for more than a year, toured various nuclear development locations around the country, and is to decide whether or not the current military weaponry arsenal is adequate or can be adjusted.

Sen. Glenn is an adjunct professor of political science at the Ohio State University, where he helped establish the John Glenn School of Public Affairs, a wing he started in 1998 to encourage public service.