Don Herbert - Hero

In Framing "The Knack", I wrote:

I've always been a BIG fan of Bill Nye. We in the S&T community should be encouraging more uses of the New Media to communicate to the public taking lessons from Bill Nye. I think we owe a great debt of gratitude to Carl Sagan and can learn from his public enthusiasm.

I was sadly remiss. I - unforgivably - failed to mention Don Herbert, aka "Mr. Wizard."

I would like to correct that by noting his life, his passing, and that he was also someone I've admired greatly.

Herbert was a general science and English major at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse who was interested in drama, until his career as an actor was interrupted by World War II when he enlisted in the United States Army as a private. Herbert later joined the United States Army Air Forces, took pilot training, and became a B-24 bomber pilot who flew combat missions with the Fifteenth Air Force, flying out of a base in Italy. When Herbert was discharged in 1945 he was a captain and had earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters.