Ancient and Honorable Order of Turtles members list
List of Famous Order of the Turtle Members ranked by fame and popularity. The Ancient and Honorable Order of Turtles is a drinking club for World War II pilots, who were looking for a way to relax between missions. The Turtles follow the creed “Turtles are bright eyed, bushy tailed, fearless and unafraid folk with a fighter pilot attitude. They think clean, have fun a lot, and recognize the fact that you never get any place in life worthwhile unless you stick your neck out.”
Who is the most famous member of the Order of the Turtle? President John F. Kennedy confirmed his membership to the world when a reporter asked him, “Are you a turtle?” Kennedy replied with the revealing response, “I'll buy you your drink later.” The proper answer to the question, “Are you a turtle?” is actually, “You bet your sweet ass I am.”
Astronauts Wally Schirra and Deke Slayton famously traded the question over worldwide broadcasts. Schirra turned off the open line radio to deliver the proper response and responded with “roger” on the main line. Slayton was a bit more bold with his answer as he openly gave the proper response on board the USS Kearsarge. Slayton's response was recalled in Tom Wolfe's famous book “The Right Stuff.”
Do you think it would be fun to be in the Order of the Turtle? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by initials JFK and Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his work as president dealt with managing relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. A Democrat, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate prior to becoming president.
Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard University in 1940, before joining the U.S. Naval Reserve the following year. During World War II, he commanded a series of PT boats in the Pacific theater and earned the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his service. After the war, Kennedy represented the 11th congressional district of Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953. He was subsequently elected to the U.S. Senate and served as the junior Senator from Massachusetts from 1953 to 1960. While in the Senate, Kennedy published his book Profiles in Courage, which won a Pulitzer Prize for Biography. In the 1960 presidential election, he narrowly defeated Republican opponent Richard Nixon, who was the incumbent vice president.
Kennedy's administration included high tensions with communist states in the Cold War. He increased the number of American military advisers in South Vietnam. In April 1961, he authorized a vain attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro in the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Kennedy authorized the Cuban Project in November 1961. He rejected Operation Northwoods (plans for false flag attacks to gain approval for a war against Cuba) in March 1962, however his administration continued to plan for an invasion of Cuba in the summer of 1962. In October 1962, U.S. spy planes discovered Soviet missile bases had been deployed in Cuba; the resulting period of tensions, termed the Cuban Missile Crisis, nearly resulted in the breakout of a global thermonuclear conflict. Domestically, Kennedy presided over the establishment of the Peace Corps and the continuation of the Apollo space program, and supported the Civil Rights Movement, but was only somewhat successful in passing his New Frontier domestic policies.
On November 22, 1963, he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the presidency upon Kennedy's death. Marxist Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the state crime, but he was shot to death by Jack Ruby two days later. The FBI and the Warren Commission both concluded Oswald had acted alone in the assassination, but various groups contested the Warren Report and believed that Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy. After Kennedy's death, Congress enacted many of his proposals, including the Civil Rights Act and the Revenue Act of 1964. Kennedy ranks highly in polls of U.S. presidents with historians and the general public. His personal life has also been the focus of considerable interest, following revelations of his chronic health ailments and extramarital affairs.
Age: Dec. at 46 (1917-1963)
Birthplace: Brookline, Massachusetts, United States of America
Walter Marty Schirra Jr. (, March 12, 1923 – May 3, 2007) (Captain, USN, Ret.) was an American naval aviator and NASA astronaut. In 1959, he became one of the original seven astronauts chosen for Project Mercury, which was the United States' first effort to put human beings into space. On October 3, 1962, he flew the six-orbit, nine-hour, Mercury-Atlas 8 mission, in a spacecraft he nicknamed Sigma 7. At the time of his mission in Sigma 7, Schirra became the fifth American and ninth human to travel into space. In the two-man Gemini program, he achieved the first space rendezvous, station-keeping his Gemini 6A spacecraft within 1 foot (30 cm) of the sister Gemini 7 spacecraft in December 1965. In October 1968, he commanded Apollo 7, an 11-day low Earth orbit shakedown test of the three-man Apollo Command/Service Module and the first crewed launch for the Apollo program.
He was the first astronaut to go into space three times, and the only astronaut to have flown in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. In total, Schirra logged 295 hours and 15 minutes in space. After Apollo 7, he retired as a captain from the U.S. Navy as well as from NASA, subsequently becoming a consultant to CBS News in the network's coverage of following Apollo flights. Schirra joined Walter Cronkite as co-anchor for all seven of NASA's Moon landing missions.
Donald Kent "Deke" Slayton (March 1, 1924 – June 13, 1993) was an American World War II pilot, aeronautical engineer, and test pilot who was selected as one of the original NASA Mercury Seven astronauts, and became NASA's first Chief of the Astronaut Office and Director of Flight Crew Operations, and was responsible for NASA crew assignments.
Slayton joined the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, and flew in Europe and the Pacific. He left the Army after World War II, and later joined the Minnesota Air National Guard after working for Boeing as an aeronautical engineer. He joined the United States Air Force, and attended the Air Force Test Pilot School in 1955. In 1959, he applied to, and was selected as one of the Mercury Seven. He was scheduled to pilot the second U.S. crewed orbital spaceflight, but was grounded in 1962 by atrial fibrillation, an irregular heart rhythm. In March 1972, he was medically cleared to fly and was the docking module pilot of the 1975 Apollo–Soyuz Test Project (ASTP). He continued to work at NASA until 1982, and helped develop the Space Shuttle.
He died from a brain tumor on June 13, 1993, aged 69.
