and the home had some secret passageways. I loved exploring those passageways, even though a few times, I nearly got stuck in one of them.
About the time I was eight years old, I had my own room on the third floor of the house. In good weather, at night I often climbed out a window onto the porch roof from the third floor and looked up at the stars … dreaming of what it might be like to travel there.
I was also fascinated by scuba diving at an early age and was intrigued by how the equipment worked. I had seen a cartoon strip in which the heroes were trying to escape from some marauders. They jumped into a lake and kept their heads underwater, using bamboo shoots to facilitate their breathing as they hid from their pursuers. When I saw that cartoon, I figured that I would experiment and try it out.
I found a hose and used it to breathe as I went underwater. Unfortunately, as I got deeper below the surface, I quickly realized that my lungs couldn’t handle the pressure without having proper oxygen. I nearly drowned! Gurgling and choking, I popped up out of the water, thinking, That trick the heroes did in the cartoon is not possible!
After World War II broke out, I kept a large map of the world in my room, and I kept track of air raids and bombings by following the newsreels. Even then, I was curious.
When a child asks me a question, I don’t ignore it. Nor do I attempt to “dumb down” the answer; I simplify my response and may not include a lot of technical details, but I respect the child’s intelligence and encourage his or her inquisitiveness.
When talking with children, I like to get down on their level, so I will kneel or stoop or even sit on the floor so I can look into their eyes. I ask questions and I listen carefully to their answers, taking my time, and giving them my full attention. I never speak to children in a condescending manner, and I welcome every question. Kids love to talk about space or underwater exploration, and I love sharing my experiences with them.
Recently, a little girl asked me, “Do you have to be brave to go into space?”
“No,” I told her with a smile. “You just have to be smart.”
• CHAPTER NINE •
DO WHAT YOU BELIEVE IS RIGHT EVEN WHEN OTHERS CHOOSE OTHERWISE.
Always maintain your honesty and integrity even if people around you compromise theirs.
Making tough decisions may often set you apart, and put you a bit out of sync with your peers. Let’s be honest: Taking the high road when people around you are willing to compromise what is right may not always draw kudos from your friends or peers. But what they think of you is not the paramount issue. You want to be able to live with yourself, knowing that you are not perfect but that you are committed to doing the right thing as best you can. That’s not as easy as it sounds, as I discovered when I was a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point, one of our nation’s most prestigious military institutions.
In 1947 as a high school senior, 17 years of age, I received an offer of a full-ride scholarship to MIT, my father’s alma mater. I turned it down because I was also honored to receive an appointment to West Point, and that commitment to serve my country has colored everything in my life. Wealth and fame have never been strong motivations for me, although I have been blessed—or cursed, depending on your perspective—with both. Making a fortune in the stock market never mattered to me, nor did having an abundance of expensive material possessions, though I’ve enjoyed some of those. My goal has always been to serve my country with honor and distinction. That’s why I went to West Point, and that’s why I went to the Moon.
During the summer of 2015, Christina ran across my “travel vouchers” for the Apollo 11 trip to the Moon. There it was, listing as “points of travel”:
FROM Houston, Texas
TO Cape Kennedy, Florida
Moon
Pacific Ocean (U.S.S. Hornet)
Hawaii
and return to Houston, Texas
Christina was astounded that NASA paid me only $33.31 for travel expenses. My only reimbursement request was for a rental car that I used prior to launch. After a journey of more than half a million miles, that was the only travel expense that I