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The first panel on the monument. It reads:

Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom, Lt. Col., USAF, was chosen by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in April, 1959, after many months of screening and testing the nation's best military test pilots, to be one of the Original Seven astronauts.

Born in Mitchell, Indiana, April 3, 1926, he attended the Riley Elementary School, formerly located on this site. Gus enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps in November, 1943; he was not inducted into the service until August, 1944, after his graduation from Mitchell High School. With the end of World War II, he was discharged, November, 1945, with the rank of corporal.

Strictly speaking, Grissom was a captain in the USAF when he was chosen as a Mercury astronaut by NASA. He was promoted to the rank of major after his Mercury flight, and to lieutenant colonel in the wake of his Gemini 3 flight.