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Charles Plumb was a U.S. Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat
missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and
spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the
ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience.
One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man
at another table came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet
fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk.
You were shot down!"
"How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb.
"I packed your parachute," the man replied. Plumb gasped in
surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said,
"I guess it worked!"
Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I
wouldn't be here today." Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking
about that man.
Plumb says, "I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a
Navy uniform: a white hat, a bib in the back, and bell-bottom
trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not
even said 'Good morning, how are you?' or anything because,
you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor."
Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent on a long
wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the
shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands
each time the fate of someone he didn't know.
Now, Plumb asks his audience, "Who's packing your parachute?"
Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it
through the day. Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds
of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory,
he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his
emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute.
He called on all these supports before reaching safety.
Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is
really important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened
to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.
As you go through this week, this month, and this year, recognize
people who pack your parachute... |
