Sent By G, Thanks

Charles Plumb was a US 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 had 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
at 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.
He 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, this year,
recognize people who
pack your parachutes.