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Elmore County Living • Spring 2012
By training astronauts to survive in the jungle, Morgan Smith became a
Teacher to the stars By Willie G. Moseley
T
he first man to walk on the Moon counted Morgan Smith as a valued instructor, after the current Elmore County resident taught him what to do should his space capsule crash down in the jungle. But the 1963 jungle survival training, which Smith led for Neil Armstrong and other space program luminaries like John Glenn and Alan Shephard, is just one of a lifelong list of accomplishments and experience for Smith, who is now enjoying a quiet retirement in Elmore County. He had decades of experience teaching the same course to thousands of people from numerous countries, and he worked in locales across the planet. Born in Orlando, Smith, 86, served in the Coast Guard in the north Pacific during World War II, and his primary duty on a Coast Guard cutter was to search for enemy submarines that were lurking off the coast of the U.S. “They were all around,” he said of the submarines. “We had depth charges to drop on them.” After the war, Smith got his anthropology degree from Florida State, concentrating on botany and biology. Perhaps
Morgan Smith is shown in his living room with his pet German Shepherd, Maya.
Photo by Willie G. Moseley