I think it is a sign of times when a singer with a questionable background brings out millions of people, shuts down a city and then brings about rumors of fans killing themselves, when a man truly worth the praise does not.  I guess that just shows you the difference between being a pop idol and being a man who just works hard and does what he loves.  Walter Cronkite was that man and while Michael Jackson may have provided the soundtrack of the early 80s, Walter Cronkite was the voice of the twentieth century, starting with World War Two and continuing right up until Michael Jackson started singing about beating it. 

The ironic thing about me eulogizing Walter Cronkite is that I don't think I got to see him doing this thing live.  He was over and done with the business by the time I was really paying any attention to the news.  Huntley and Brinkley were still doing their thing and, in my home, we were an NBC family anyway.  Walter may have been the most trusted man in America, but not in my house where my mom picked up her TV-watching habits from her mother. 

Walter Cronkite was a man unique even to today's news.  He believed that it was his job to provide the truth to America.  This he did even when the truth sometimes hurt even his beliefs.  He was for the war in Vietnam until he went there.  Then he looked America in the face and said he felt it was a war that America could not win.  

Walter started in World War Two and he wanted to be a journalist his entire life.  People tell me they get stupid advice being told they should do what they love.  Walter did what he loved and became the voice of a generation more than any folk singer.  He didn't believe in just telling the news as it was told to him, but experiencing it.  During the Second World War he was in those bombers as they flew over Germany and he touched down on tarmac to give his reports.  He had as much chance of dying as the pilots and the gunners and he did it just to tell the truth. 

Is it even possible to think of the Kennedy assassination without thinking of Walter Cronkite?  Walter admired the president.  I have no idea what Walter's personal political beliefs were, because he believed in telling the story without his personal biases.  Can you imagine thinking of those terrible days without thinking of the footage of Walter that seemed to sum up how the entire country felt.  He told the story that the president was dead and then he took off his glasses and he paused.  He let his humanity show.  And then he did what everyone else had to do, he put his glasses back on and he went back to work.  It seemed to sum up the entire country.  Yes, we were hurt, but we would find the way to move on. 

By a sheer force of will he seemed to single-handedly move the space program forward.  Walter believed so passionately in NASA and the trip to the moon that he seemed to be a giant kid when doing his newscasts about the astronauts he helped turn into household names and national heroes.  Can you even think of the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon without thinking of Walter Cronkite?  He was as breathless and ecstatic as the rest of the world as the eagle landed.   

Walter Cronkite got to witness history.  He was invited, night after night into the living rooms of thousands upon thousands of Americans.  He told them what was happening and he earned their trust.  He was a man who, reportedly, loved his family, his job and the world around him.  He seemed to maintain a kind of optimism about humanity even when he was living through, and reporting some of the biggest tragedies the world has ever known. 

Walter Cronkite reported the bombing of a church in Alabama that killed four African American schoolgirls.  He reported when Robert Kennedy was shot and he was the man who told America that Martin Luther King, Jr. was dead.  He sat in a helicopter loaded with body bags carrying G.I.'s home in Vietnam when he decided that the crap being fed to America from the generals there was just that...a load of crap.  From a man who believed in America, it must have been very hard for him to realize that the government had lead the country into a horrible and wrong war.  It must have broken his heart to cover the Watergate scandal and the disgrace of Richard Nixon. 

At the same time, Walter Cronkite reported about celebrities.  He was actually the first to report about the Beatles and Beatle-mania.  Only Walter Cronkite would have been invited to a concert by the Grateful Dead.   

These days the news is something that runs twenty-four hours a day.  There are entire generations who have grown up with CNN and MSNBC running their mouths day and night and all day and all night.  It is hard for them to imagine a time when the news was only on in the morning, at dinner and then just before bed.  While Walter may have helped create the modern newscast, I am not sure he would have liked the modern newscast.  There seems to be far too many people on places like CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and Fox News that just like to hear themselves talk without really providing any information to anyone.  They certainly don't seem concerned with providing the truth as Walter was. 

Ultimately Walter Cronkite was a working man.  He had to work hard for his family.  He provided for them by helping the country learn about the events of the day.  He held about as much power as a man could as a journalist and he took that responsibility seriously.  I don't know what kind of man he really was, as I never met him, but he seemed like a nice enough guy for someone as famous as he was.  He believed passionately in the First Amendment and he was a personification of that belief.  He was truly an American. 

We like to throw around the word “great” a lot these days.  I have no idea if Walter Cronkite was a “great” man.  I know he was a hard-working man who did a very good job doing what he loved.  He did it as nobly as he could and the best he can.  I am sure he made plenty of mistakes along the way and probably wronged a few people in his time, but I think, on the whole, he was a good man who did a good job. 

He retired when he felt it was his time and you have to respect that too.  He didn't spend a lot of time trying to claw his way back and he wasn't, to my knowledge, forced out.  He retired and he stayed retired, only showing up from time to time.  He remained well-respected, but he  let the mantle pass when he passed it.  Some sports figures could learn a thing or two from that. 

I think the world is a little emptier without Walter Cronkite.  Even though he wasn't in the spotlight, it was good knowing he was there.  I hope he has found the rest he more than earned and more than deserved. 

Good night, Walter, and thanks for everything.