Nows and Forevers

Fifty-six years ago this week the three brave men undertook up to then was the most spectacular and hazardous journey ever undertaken: Apollo 8, the first trip from the Earth to the Moon. That took a lot of planning and guts, and think about it: This is a trip that we haven’t been able to replicate since 1972, and Apollo 8 was first.

And on Christmas Eve 1968, broadcasting live the first views of Earth and the Moon, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders delivered a Christmas Eve message for the ages. It’s in my opinion one of the most powerful few minutes of live TV ever, then and now.

You see, 1968 was one of the toughest years we faced as a country, violent and tragic and full of war at home and abroad, and a Cold War and nuclear threat over us all. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were taken in 1968 long before their time and those losses still reverberate today.

But Apollo 8’s voyage ended the year with a triumph that showed spirit, grace and peace. In the words of one ordinary citizen to the crew of Apollo 8: “You saved 1968.”

I was only a little over a year old in 1968 but I had a CBS News record when I was a kid of that pivotal year and I was mesmerized by the drama and this message. I have listened to it on Christmas Eve every year since the late ‘70s.

I know it by heart, but even now, Frank Borman’s ending words in those times still catches me.

“God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”