Mr. Glenn was reluctant to talk about himself as a hero. “I figure I’m the same person who grew up in New Concord, Ohio, and went off through the years to participate in a lot of events of importance,” he said in an interview years later. “What got a lot of attention, I think, was the tenuous times we thought we were living in back in the Cold War. I don’t think it was about me. All this would have happened to anyone who happened to be selected for that flight.”
www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/us/john-glenn-dies.html
The word hero gets thrown around a fair bit, but I think its fair to say for someone like John Glenn it applies. RIP