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. Charles Plumb, a US Naval Academy
graduate, was a 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. His experience reminds us all to prepare ourselves
to weather whatever storms lie ahead. As you go through this week, this month, this
year.....recognize people who pack your parachute.