Where Were You When Neil Armstrong First Set Foot On The Moon?

The date was July 20, 1969 when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon at 20:17:40 UTC according to NASA. (For those who like precision, Neil stepped onto the Sea of Tranquility0°40′26.69″N 23°28′22.69″E / 0.6740806°N 23.4729694°E / 0.6740806; 23.4729694 based on the IAU Mean Earth Polar Axis coordinate system.) I will never forget that date and time because I witnessed this historic event at 3:17 pm in the induction center at Fort Leonard Wood Missouri. It was a very odd moment in my life. I had left my wife early that morning in a very frightened and emotional state by herself in Milwaukee; travelled all day by busses without airconditioning in 100+ degree heat; met up along the way in various little towns with what seemed to me at the time to be a very ragtag and slightly dangerous bunch of fellow draftees; and then arrived at Leonard Wood to the welcome of a bunch of screaming Drill Sargents just 30 minutes before Neil's famous landing. Mostly because the Drill Sargents wanted to watch the Apollo landing themselves, our induction class was spared quite a lot of the normal torture of a first night in boot camp and allowed to stay in the company mess hall and watch that historic event for several hours. I was thankful for the chance to see that historic event and came to appreciate & respect all those fellows in my company very much.

One last thing. Many people forget that Apollo 11 took off from Earth during the Woodstock concert in New York. I wasn't a hippie, and I wouldn't normally have even been aware that Woodstock was taking place except for one other small detail on that odd day in July 1969. It turned out that one of my fellow draftee's had gone AWOL in a previous boot camp and decided to try to make it to Canada via New York. He heard about Woodstock, decided to stop and see it, got stopped by the police for speeding, was sent back to Leonard Wood and sat next to me in the mess hall watching Neil step on the moon. Then they sent him to Vietnam. I can't remember his name, and I have no idea if he made it back or not.