A young boy grew up in rural western Kentucky. His parents ran a dairy, and this extended family were small business entrepreneurs. In his teens he was given the opportunity to participate in the diary not just as an underpaid worker, but as someone who would be allowed to purchase calves, raise them and take a working share of the profits from his cows. In college, two events happened that would change the trajectory of his life and of the lives of thousands of others. He met his future wife at a food drive in and he enlisted in the Navy.
After graduation he applied for naval aviation training to become a pilot and succeeded. Soon after getting his wings he married a beautiful women he had met in college.
Over the years he flew fighter jets off the decks of many carriers serving in the Vietnam war and in Desert Storm years later. He was the leading pilot on every carrier he served on concluding with 1,220 carrier “catches.” He served as a based commander at the top stateside naval bases including Miramar. He was a Top Gun graduate and later a Top Gun instructor and late still, he flew the “opposition” jets that challenged the Top Gun pilots. He served two tours of the Pentagon including one assignment as the person responsible for the development of the Navy budget.
He lost friends in combat and from accidents. On one occasion while playing a pickup basketball game- every Kentucky citizen believes they are basketball wizzes- he was notified that an aircraft that had been in for repair needed a check ride by a pilot, which was standard practice. He and his best friend decided to flip a coin to see who continued playing basketball and which did a no-brainer check ride. His friend lost that flip of the coin.
An hour later alarms started sounding on base and a “plane down” alert was issued. He jumped into the truck with the rest of the rescue team and headed for the scene of the crash a few miles away and just offshore. From the front of the leading rescue boat he saw his friend still in the pilot’s seat trying to open the canopy which should have blown off prior to the crash. Nobody was able to get the canopy off and he watched his friend slowly drown 5ft from where he stood on the deck of the rescue boat. He had lost people before. It was never easy, but this one hurt a lot. I can still hear the pain in his voice as he told me this story 25 years later.
On a hunting trip that was two days up and two days back, we had a lot of windshield time. One morning on the way back we stopped for gas at a station that also had a restaurant. While he finished his coffee, I headed out to fill up the truck. As I left, I noticed a young twenty-something man sitting on the ground leaning up against the restaurant with a shepherd-mix dog at his side. As I started filling the truck my friend came out of the restaurant, saw the man and dog and sat down on the cold ground with them. They started talking and talking and talking for what seemed like a long time as I sat in the truck and waited.
“What was that all about?” I asked. He told me this young man’s life story of an abusive alcoholic, divorced father, of getting addicted and escaping his addiction finding a stray dog and his plans to travel to his aunt’s house in Dallas to start over. As we were headed to Austin, we could not offer him a ride. “What did you give him?” “I gave him $50 dollars” he told me. Then he explained.
“I have lost a lot of friends and good men in my life and the single most powerful emotion I felt after grief was frustration that I could not help any one of them. That feeling never leaves me. So I made a promise to myself that every opportunity that comes my way where I can help somebody, I will. I keep several fifty-dollar bills folded up in my wallet. Over the years I have given away thousands of dollars. He continued, "there was a guy begging on a street corner near where we grocery shop. I started off giving him money but one day I walked back from the grocery store and sat down on the street curb to talk to him. His name was Arron Adams. He was homeless. I asked him where he stayed, and he told me where the homeless shelter he used was located. Over the next year we became friends. I would always take him to lunch and give him $50 when I was in his part of town. One day he was gone. I went to the homeless shelter, and they told me that he was gone, and nobody knew where he went. That old feeling of regret came back to me, but I had done what I could.”
Wherever I go and whoever I meet my instinct is to ask myself “How can I help.”
I have known a woman for 46 years. She had an amazing executive career with a national telecommunications company. Her kids and my kids were about the same age and our families lived near each other. We stayed in touch over the years but when she retired, I lost track of her. She dropped me a note a few years back and asked what I was doing with my retirement. We struck up a conversation about what each of us was doing.
I was surprised to learn that even though she had traveled the world and built lifelong friendships across the nation, she had found enormous satisfaction in her current passion of many years. She is a child advocate in the urban family court system.
The pain and suffering she deals with daily could worm a mule. Child abuse, child abandonment, broken children, fights, drugs, disinterested judges, arrests you name it, she is right in the middle of it day and night. I have never understood the level of personal sacrifice, emotional pain, feelings of personal failure and utter frustration that comes with this unpaid work of love she had undertaken mostly with a smile but always with passion. She had a mild stroke a few years ago that has reduced her ease of mobility, but it has not slowed her down. She always takes birthday and Christmas gifts to “her children.” Those she is protecting and those who have found adopted parents. To me angels are those who are willing to suffer deeply for the opportunity to help others and show God’s love to the innocent, to people in need and to those who are unworthy of her sacrifices. I asked her why she has chosen this very difficult and emotionally draining endeavor so late in her life. She told me that everyday she wakes up, looks at the case files in front of her and asks God “how can I help?” and there is always an answer.
A dear friend that I have had the pleasure of knowing for the past 10 years is another example I admire. He has been a pastor for quite a few years. He also has another calling. His advanced education was in counseling. Wherever he goes he becomes a Chaplain to the local police or county sheriff's department. Here it was to the Sheriff’s Department. Over the years he has been called out at all hours of the day and night to the scenes of murders, child drownings, suicides, deaths on the highway and virtually every form of violent crime where there is a victim. His wife has become an expert at getting blood out of his clothing. He talks about God’s love by day and delivers God’s love by night. He is a hero of mine. When he accepted a new pastoring opportunity in another state, the local Sheriff’s Dept threw him an appreciation reception that was attended not only by those on duty but by those who came in from off duty to say goodbye. He was both loved and admired. Many had never heard him preach a sermon, but they had all seen him performing the kind of sermon nobody forgets. When he gets to the scene of a disaster, he always asks the same question, “How can I Help?”
After graduation he applied for naval aviation training to become a pilot and succeeded. Soon after getting his wings he married a beautiful women he had met in college.
Over the years he flew fighter jets off the decks of many carriers serving in the Vietnam war and in Desert Storm years later. He was the leading pilot on every carrier he served on concluding with 1,220 carrier “catches.” He served as a based commander at the top stateside naval bases including Miramar. He was a Top Gun graduate and later a Top Gun instructor and late still, he flew the “opposition” jets that challenged the Top Gun pilots. He served two tours of the Pentagon including one assignment as the person responsible for the development of the Navy budget.
He lost friends in combat and from accidents. On one occasion while playing a pickup basketball game- every Kentucky citizen believes they are basketball wizzes- he was notified that an aircraft that had been in for repair needed a check ride by a pilot, which was standard practice. He and his best friend decided to flip a coin to see who continued playing basketball and which did a no-brainer check ride. His friend lost that flip of the coin.
An hour later alarms started sounding on base and a “plane down” alert was issued. He jumped into the truck with the rest of the rescue team and headed for the scene of the crash a few miles away and just offshore. From the front of the leading rescue boat he saw his friend still in the pilot’s seat trying to open the canopy which should have blown off prior to the crash. Nobody was able to get the canopy off and he watched his friend slowly drown 5ft from where he stood on the deck of the rescue boat. He had lost people before. It was never easy, but this one hurt a lot. I can still hear the pain in his voice as he told me this story 25 years later.
On a hunting trip that was two days up and two days back, we had a lot of windshield time. One morning on the way back we stopped for gas at a station that also had a restaurant. While he finished his coffee, I headed out to fill up the truck. As I left, I noticed a young twenty-something man sitting on the ground leaning up against the restaurant with a shepherd-mix dog at his side. As I started filling the truck my friend came out of the restaurant, saw the man and dog and sat down on the cold ground with them. They started talking and talking and talking for what seemed like a long time as I sat in the truck and waited.
“What was that all about?” I asked. He told me this young man’s life story of an abusive alcoholic, divorced father, of getting addicted and escaping his addiction finding a stray dog and his plans to travel to his aunt’s house in Dallas to start over. As we were headed to Austin, we could not offer him a ride. “What did you give him?” “I gave him $50 dollars” he told me. Then he explained.
“I have lost a lot of friends and good men in my life and the single most powerful emotion I felt after grief was frustration that I could not help any one of them. That feeling never leaves me. So I made a promise to myself that every opportunity that comes my way where I can help somebody, I will. I keep several fifty-dollar bills folded up in my wallet. Over the years I have given away thousands of dollars. He continued, "there was a guy begging on a street corner near where we grocery shop. I started off giving him money but one day I walked back from the grocery store and sat down on the street curb to talk to him. His name was Arron Adams. He was homeless. I asked him where he stayed, and he told me where the homeless shelter he used was located. Over the next year we became friends. I would always take him to lunch and give him $50 when I was in his part of town. One day he was gone. I went to the homeless shelter, and they told me that he was gone, and nobody knew where he went. That old feeling of regret came back to me, but I had done what I could.”
Wherever I go and whoever I meet my instinct is to ask myself “How can I help.”
I have known a woman for 46 years. She had an amazing executive career with a national telecommunications company. Her kids and my kids were about the same age and our families lived near each other. We stayed in touch over the years but when she retired, I lost track of her. She dropped me a note a few years back and asked what I was doing with my retirement. We struck up a conversation about what each of us was doing.
I was surprised to learn that even though she had traveled the world and built lifelong friendships across the nation, she had found enormous satisfaction in her current passion of many years. She is a child advocate in the urban family court system.
The pain and suffering she deals with daily could worm a mule. Child abuse, child abandonment, broken children, fights, drugs, disinterested judges, arrests you name it, she is right in the middle of it day and night. I have never understood the level of personal sacrifice, emotional pain, feelings of personal failure and utter frustration that comes with this unpaid work of love she had undertaken mostly with a smile but always with passion. She had a mild stroke a few years ago that has reduced her ease of mobility, but it has not slowed her down. She always takes birthday and Christmas gifts to “her children.” Those she is protecting and those who have found adopted parents. To me angels are those who are willing to suffer deeply for the opportunity to help others and show God’s love to the innocent, to people in need and to those who are unworthy of her sacrifices. I asked her why she has chosen this very difficult and emotionally draining endeavor so late in her life. She told me that everyday she wakes up, looks at the case files in front of her and asks God “how can I help?” and there is always an answer.
A dear friend that I have had the pleasure of knowing for the past 10 years is another example I admire. He has been a pastor for quite a few years. He also has another calling. His advanced education was in counseling. Wherever he goes he becomes a Chaplain to the local police or county sheriff's department. Here it was to the Sheriff’s Department. Over the years he has been called out at all hours of the day and night to the scenes of murders, child drownings, suicides, deaths on the highway and virtually every form of violent crime where there is a victim. His wife has become an expert at getting blood out of his clothing. He talks about God’s love by day and delivers God’s love by night. He is a hero of mine. When he accepted a new pastoring opportunity in another state, the local Sheriff’s Dept threw him an appreciation reception that was attended not only by those on duty but by those who came in from off duty to say goodbye. He was both loved and admired. Many had never heard him preach a sermon, but they had all seen him performing the kind of sermon nobody forgets. When he gets to the scene of a disaster, he always asks the same question, “How can I Help?”
I felt so bad that I had no cash on me , so I make sure now that I always have at least £10 on me to give if someone asks me . I never want to feel like that again 