The Virginia Gazette - Thank You Mr. Armstrong

Op-Ed

By J. Randy Forbes

It was July 20, 1969. I was a 17-year-old driving past the golden corn fields that lined quiet rural roads of Virginia.

I remember the rich, smoky voice of the announcer coming through the speakers, the rush of cold air blasting out of the vents of my father's Ford on that hot, heavy Sunday afternoon. Neil Armstrong was commanding Apollo 11.

With only minutes of fuel remaining, Armstrong was piloting a tiny fleck of a spaceship nearly a quarter of a million miles away. Humanity drew in its breath to listen as he took the controls to manually redirect the craft on course to collide with bulky craters jutting out of the charcoal landscape.

My heart hammered in my chest. My mind raced. Around the world, a half a billion hearts pumped with me. Armstrong was unflappably calm. Precise. He held the anticipation of all of humanity in that moment.

"Houston, Tranquility Base here," he radioed. "The Eagle has landed."

"Roger, Tranquility," mission control replied. "We copy you on the ground. You've got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again."

It was a day I will carry with me forever. Armstrong was a main character in a national narrative of hope. Hope based not in words but in deeds. Hope measured by not by soundbites but by skill. He lived at a time when the word 'communism' wasn't a theory but a threat. And when he walked on the surface of moon that day, the world felt the power of our nation's pride.

Virginia's children may not have lived the nervous excitement of that day, but they hold within them a freshness of vision that we remember of our younger selves.

We see that across Virginia, as students are learning science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Students walk into W-JCC schools every day, craving creativity. Their minds are, as Armstrong's was, equipped to think critically and to solve complex problems. They tinker, question, test, and retest. They build websites. They create apps. They code. They build virtual cities.

The same curiosity that existed in Neil Armstrong's heart and mind lives on in our nation's youngest citizens today. When we tell our students about the man who walked on the moon, we must show them that the biggest ideas start in unfamiliar places, move forward with small steps, and bring leaps for mankind.

We must tell them how our economy and global competitiveness depend on the skill level, adaptability, and diverse knowledge of our workforce. We must equip our students with the knowledge and resources they need to hone their abilities to compete in an increasingly global economy. As a representative of these Virginian students, I believe it is both my job and my privilege to create avenues for this. That's why I've made it a mission to advocate for programs promoting Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education. That's why I believe it's necessary that we expand the definition of STEM technology to include computer science, a growing and critical field today. That's why I've supported legislation like the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act, which highlights the importance of industry investment and partnerships when it comes to STEM education. And it's why we must create opportunities to get students excited about learning, through competitions like the Congressional App Challenge that recognizes and awards students who build software applications. Because students who are empowered to invest in STEM fields today, tomorrow may do what Neil Armstrong did -- change the world.

Passing on the torch of curiosity and creativity that these great discoverers is critical not just for our country's economy, but for its future. Because scientific discovery remains the antidote for a weary nation, jostled and numb by an onslaught of mediocrity and dizzy from a national lens out-of-focus.

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