Who's packing your parachute?
Charles Plumb, a US Naval Academy graduate, was a jet fighter 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 Dixie cup 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!
Author Unknown
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