----------------------------------------------------------------------------JOHN GLENN RETIRES A HERO, GENTLEMANPublished: Friday, February 21, 1997Page: 12ABy:EDITORIAL PAGE----------------------------------------------------------------------------U.S. Sen. John Glenn's announcement that he's quitting politics is promptingall manner of accolades.In battle and in space, he showed bravery. He never forgot his roots. He wasnot too big to care about details. He didn't grandstand. He was loyal to allthose around him.But what Sen. Glenn, 75, should celebrate is that the praise isn'tperfunctory. Throughout his long career in public office - four consecutiveterms in the U. S. Senate - he has been respected for his sense of fairness,his unwillingness to be a partisan and his expertise on military matters,science and space issues and the mechanics of making government work. Manyof the things people are saying upon his retirement are things they've longsaid about him.The only blotches on Sen. Glenn's career stemmed from his difficulty inpaying off the debt for his presidential run and for his connection toCharles Keating, the financier who was charged with swindling millions fromlarge and small investors. When Mr. Keating's wheeling and dealing caught upwith him, Sen. Glenn was branded as one of the infamous Keating Five, allpoliticians who at one time or another had gone to bat for Mr. Keating.Although the subsequent investigations found that Sen. Glenn had donenothing egregious, the association was embarrassing.Sen. Glenn, a small-town boy who married his high-school sweetheart, seemedas comfortable at county fairs as he did in Senate committee hearings. Hecould talk to farmers the same way he talked to rocket scientists. How wastheir work going, and what should government be doing or not doing to help?Plain talk, not eloquence, was his hallmark. But there were times when Sen.Glenn surprised people. In the 1974 primary election campaign against HowardMetzenbaum, for example, Sen. Glenn responded to Mr. Metzenbaum's chargethat he had never really had a job by daring Mr. Metzenbaum to say that to aGold Star Mother whose son had died in combat.Given the bruising campaign he went through in 1992 against Mike DeWine,some people have speculated that the thought of battling Gov. GeorgeVoinovich in 1998 scared Sen. Glenn into retirement. Surely Gov. Voinovich'splans figured into Sen. Glenn's plans, but that's an insulting focus. A manwho jetted into dogfights over Korea; who was the first American to orbitthe earth; who made a brief, although quixotic, run for the presidency; andwho fought and won Senate campaigns that proved him the most formidableDemocrat in Ohio has proved his nerve.Moreover, politics is not Sen. Glenn's only option. Always adamant that hehoped for another trip into space, not too long ago Sen. Glenn told NASAthat he's available when the space agency gets around to `geriatricstudies.'What else is there to say except Godspeed?----------------------------------------------------------------------------LINE DRAWING: John GlennCREDIT: WACHOM c1983----------------------------------------------------------------------------Copyright , Dayton Daily News. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.----------------------------------------------------------------------------Dayton Daily News archives are stored on a SAVE (tm) newspaper librarysystem from MediaStream, Inc., a Knight-Ridder Inc. company.