Hero might be the most overused and misapplied word in the English language. These days, hero is too often merely a synonym for “celebrity,” but a true hero is someone who is more interested in helping others than in promoting themselves. Mark Kelly and Gabrielle Giffords are true heroes, having spent their adult lives in the service of others.
While most Americans know her for her courageous fight to recover from an assassin’s bullet, Ms. Giffords has worked for the greater good for decades. After returning home to help with her family’s struggling business, she has been a public servant as a state representative, then U.S. Congresswoman from Arizona’s 8th District. She was elected to serve the 8th District 3 times, before deciding to retire in 2012, a year after the assassination attempt. She insisted on casting a vote for the debt-ceiling bill in 2011, making the arduous journey to Capitol Hill while still going through intense physical therapy.
When learning of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary school, Gabby’s one-word response, “Enough!”, was the catalyst for Americans for Responsible Solutions, the organization she and Captain Kelly founded to fight the epidemic of gun violence in the United States. Longtime gun owners and defenders of the Second Amendment, they are working for common sense solutions to the proliferation of assault weapons and their consensus-building, moderate approach has been instrumental in passing over 200 new gun laws in 45 states and Washington DC. But, as recent events attest, their work is not done. In 2016, Americans for Responsible Solutions merged with Legal Community Against Violence to form the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the Giffords PAC.
Captain Kelly has lived a life that reads like one of the stories from his compelling Astrotwins and Mousetronaut series. He is a highly decorated Naval aviator, having flown 39 combat missions for the Navy during Operation Desert Storm as well as 4 space shuttle flights (piloting and commanding two missions each), before retiring from NASA and the U.S. Navy after commanding the final flight of the Endeavour. He realized a dream shared by many of us who grew up in the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo era, by putting in the time and effort and shouldering the inherent risks to actually earn the title of astronaut.
Of course, no one is born a hero and very few become heroes without the influences of others. Mark and his twin brother Scott were raised in West Orange, New Jersey, not far from Montclair, where Buzz Aldrin grew up. Their parents, both police officers, instilled the twins with a spirit of confronting difficulties when they arose. Whenever he and Scott broke something during one of their many “skirmishes,” they were required to repair or replace any broken items. In fact, on many occasions, their parents would return home sniffing the air suspiciously, declaring, “I smell paint!” while searching the house for the wall, door, or household item that had been damaged.
A decorated pilot and astronaut himself, Mark’s brother Scott spent 346 consecutive days in space as part of a year-long research project studying the effects of prolonged exposure to zero gravity. Mark, ever the dutiful older brother (by 6 minutes), was poked and prodded as the research “control” for the project, adding contributions to science to his ever-growing list of accomplishments. It’s interesting to ponder which brother points out that, due to his extended time spent orbiting the earth in the International Space Station at a speed of over 17,000 miles per hour, Scott is now 6 minutes and 5 milliseconds younger than Mark (according to Einstein).
The Lesley University community is proud to welcome two true American heroes—Mark Kelly and Gabrielle Giffords.