WHO PACKED YOUR PARACHUTE?

Charles Plumb was a U.S. 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, “I know you, your name is 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." 

That night Plumb couldn't sleep, thinking about that man.

He 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, each time holding in his hands the fate of someone he didn't know.

Now, Plumb asks his audience, "Who's packing your parachute?"

You see, every day, somewhere, there is somebody, who you may not even know, who is performing some task that may literally or figuratively, have the potential of saving your life.

No man is an island, we are all dependent, in some way, on each other for our success, perhaps our lives.

So, ask yourself, today, “whose packing my parachute?” 

And, more importantly, “whose parachute am I packing -  and am I doing it well?”