James Buckley - Michael Collins: Discovering Historys Heroes

Discover historys heroes and their stories:

Ida B. Wells

ALADDIN

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First Aladdin paperback edition August 2019

Text copyright 2019 by James Buckley, Jr.

Cover illustration copyright 2019 by Lisa K. Weber

Also available in an Aladdin hardcover edition.

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Cover designed by Nina Simoneaux

Interior designed by Mike Rosamilia

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Buckley, James, Jr., 1963- author.

Title: Michael Collins : discovering historys heroes / by James Buckley Jr.

Description: New York : Jeter Publishing, 2018. | Audience: Ages 7-10.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018019225 (print) | LCCN 2018022405 (eBook) | ISBN 9781534424807 (hc) | ISBN 9781534424791 (pbk) |

ISBN 9781534424814 (eBook)

Subjects: LCSH: Collins, Michael, 1930Juvenile literature. | Space flight to the moonJuvenile literature. | Project Apollo (U.S.)Juvenile literature. | AstronautsUnited StatesBiographyJuvenile literature.

Classification: LCC TL789.85.C65 (eBook) | LCC TL789.85.C65 B83 2018 (print) | DDC 629.450092 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018019225

On being alone on the far side of the moon:

I feel this [feeling] powerfullynot as fear or lonelinessbut as awareness, anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost exultation.

Michael Collins, Carrying the Fire

Heroes abound, and should be revered as such, but dont count astronauts among them. We work very hard; we did our jobs to near perfection, but that was what we had hired on to do.

Michael Collins, 2009 NASA statement

Glance up into the sky from just about anywhere on Earth (as long as its nighttime, and as long as its not too cloudy)... and you can see the moon. This giant space rock has been spinning around Earth for 4.5 billion years or so. Human beings like you have been looking up at the moon for only about 300,000 of those years. Thats still a pretty long time.

For 299,950 of those years, staring up at the moon was all any of us could ever do. Flying up there and standing on it? The stuff of dreams.

... until those dreams came true on July 20, 1969that day, two members of our species climbed out of a metal contraption and stood on the moon. Those two astronautsNeil Armstrong and Edwin Buzz Aldrininstantly became world famous. For all of history, they will always be the first men on the moon. Their courage was cheered from America to Timbuktu. They became heroes.

However, another human being was up there too. Michael Collins didnt get to walk on the moon, but without him the other two heroes would not have come back. That first mission to the moon, Apollo 11 , was a three-person job... this book is about person number three, who in our eyes is just as much a hero as the other two gents.

Of course, Collins has said over and over again that he doesnt think hes a hero. Lots of heroes say that, actually. Its one of the things that unite them as heroes. They usually dont think what theyre doing is really special. They think that theyre just doing a job that needs to be done. But we believe that celebrating such people is important. By learning more about the heroes who have not been in the spotlight, we can know more about our history. We can see how we arrived at this point and, perhaps more important, how we can form our future.

The Apollo 11 trip was actually the second into space for Collins, after a career as a daring test pilot. On an earlier mission for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), he was one of the first people to walk in space. He helped improve the special suits worn by Apollo astronauts. After his time as an astronaut, he led the drive to create one of the most popular museums in the world.

When you think about it, Michael Collins has lived such a full and amazing life that he would have been a hero even if he had never left Earth. Number three? How about number one?

When he was a kid, Michael Collins didnt grow up wanting to be an astronaut. There was a good reason for that. There were no astronauts when he was a kid. In fact, the first airplane had flown just twenty-seven years before his birth. When he was born, flying to the moon was something you read about in science fiction. It was not something you thought could be your job.

Later in his life, Collins did fly around the world, in more ways than one. He was born on Halloween, October 31, 1930, in Rome, Italy. That didnt make him Italian, though. His father, Major General James Lawton Collins, was an officer in the United States Army. He had been one since before World War I. One of his first assignments had been to help the famous General John Black Jack Pershing chase down a Mexican bandit called Pancho Villa. James Collins then served in World War I. As Collins rose through the military ranks, the army sent him to different posts around the world. His family went along with him. Michael was very young when his family left Italy. They moved to Oklahoma first, then soon moved again, this time to New York City. Military families in the city lived on Governors Island. Michael could see the Statue of Liberty from there, as well as the skyscrapers of Manhattan.

Next stop was San Antonio, Texas. It was in Texas that Michael says he first started loving airplanes. He would sit and watch them take off and land at a small airfield near his house. He wondered what

In 1940, General Collins became the head of army forces in Puerto Rico. The Collins family was on the move again. Michael loved his exotic new home. His family lived in a building called Casa Blanca, which means White House. This large white home was one of the oldest buildings in the Americas. People had lived in it since 1530!

Puerto Rico amazed Michael. There he saw animals such as lizards and tropical fish. His house had a huge garden, too, filled with wild green plants. He also learned tough lessons when he ate local foods that did not agree with his American stomach.

In Puerto Rico the airplane-loving boy finally got to ride in the sky. He and his father got a ride in a Grumman Widgeon. (A widgeon is a type of duck.) Michael got to sit in the copilots seat and even steered the plane for a few moments. It was a thrill, and one he looked forward to repeating.

In 1941 the United States entered World War II. The army needed experienced officers to help run the war. General Collins was called to work in Washington, DC, at the Pentagon. Thats the headquarters of the US armed forces. The Collins family left beautiful Puerto Rico behind and once again followed General Collins as he served his country. Michaels father wasnt the only one in the family to serve his country in this way. Michaels older brother, James, was by then a cadet at West Point, the United States Military Academy; and General Collinss brother Joseph was one of the senior commanders in Europe during World War II. Michael also had two sisters, Virginia and Agnes. The family lived in Virginia, outside DC.