Who Packed Your Parachute?

Last week, while on my school visits, I visited CREST School.  CREST provides a learning environment for both intellectually challenged and emotionally challenged students.  Before bringing me around the school, Principal Rich Hilgert and I met in his office where he looked at my identification badge and my lanyard which has a number of pins on it which represent school programs, memberships and our U.S. Flag at the top.  Mr. Hilgert looked at the pins and told me that I needed another. He then handed me a “parachute pin” and began telling me the story of former U.S. Navy Captain and P.O.W. Charles Plumb.

Capt. Plumb was a Navy Aviator jet pilot in Vietnam and 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 in Hanoi. One day after Plumb was released and returned to the U S, he and his wife were sitting in a restaurant when a man at another table came up to him 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 man 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.

Mr. Hilgert shared that each CREST staff member was given the same pin he handed me.  Mr. Hilgert said,  “at CREST we work hard to honor all our “parachute packers” every day.

Mr. Hilgert’s story of Capt. Plumb really got me reflecting more than ever about how critical each and every person in our districts plays a vital role in educating our students.  Our school district is filled with so many “parachute packers”, from our teacher aides, to our bus drivers, food service staff, maintenance staff, custodial staff, secretaries, district staff and many more.

Every student and teacher has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. Mr. Hilgert told me how Capt. 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.

At times in the daily challenges of life, we fail to realize what is really important. We may sometimes forget to say “hello”, “please”, or “thank you”, congratulate someone about something wonderful that has happened to them, give a deserved compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.

As you go through your day, your week, this month, this year, recognize people who pack your parachute.

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