When the second World War wound down our men were coming home one by one. They were in top physical condition. I got together a dozen of these Veterans to play basketball as the Turtle Mountain Independents. We played every possible team along the Canada/US border. Some of the men are now dead, but you can ask Willard Champagne or Roy Azure about the two or three years that we were a team of Belcourt Independents. Willard will remember every man and his position. I don’t remember the positions, but I remember the players and how great it was to be with them.
(Note: When we were on the road, Leander Gourneau, our only reservation policeman, drove with us in his car as our booster/cheerleader. Leander, with Ben Lajimodiere, our night watch, was our total police force in those days. Ben came to the priests’ house one day and told me, “Father, you are the new Scout master. I’m too old now, so you are it.” Me! I couldn’t even tie my own shoe strings, and now I’m going to show thirty five boys, how to tie ropes. Ben said, “Don’t worry, Father. I’ll give you a book. You can read that.”)
The following is the kind of story that tested veterans told, while I sat spellbound, driving them in my little Ford: Captain Charles Plum was a fighter pilot. He had 38 combat missions. His plane was hit and disabled by ground fire. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy territory. He was captured and spent 6 years in captivity. He survived the ordeal and, once back home again, he took up lecturing about the lessons he learned from that experience.
One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table, after watching him for a while, stood up, came to him, saluted and said, “I believe you are Captain Plumb. You flew cover for our men going into Germany. You were shot down.”
Startled, filled with excitement, Plumb jumped, “How could you know that? How did you know me?”
Calm and proud the man said, “I packed your parachute.”
Plumb choked. He couldn’t speak.
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, “In prison I kept wondering what he had looked like, that boy; that boy all the time working to make sure that I’d be safe. He was really, himself, gun at hand, ready in a moment’s notice to put on combat gear. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said ‘Good morning’, because, you see, he was just General Issue (a GI), and me, I was a fighter pilot.”
Plumb thought of the many hours that man/boy had spent at a long wooden table under hot canvas, and in muddy water, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands the fate of someone he didn’t know.
In his talks now, Plumb looks straight at his audience and asks, “Who’s packing your parachute?”
Everyone has someone, who provides for him/her what he needs to make it through the day. He also points out that, when he was shot down over enemy lines, he needed many kinds of parachutes. He needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute and his spiritual parachute.
He needed all these parachutes to lower him to safety.
Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We fail to say hello, please or thank you. We fail to congratulate someone for something they’ve done, or give a compliment or even do something nice for no reason. As you go through this week, this month, this year, recognize people who pack your parachutes.
I am sending you this as my way of thanking you for your part in packing my parachute. And I hope you will send it on to those who have helped you pack yours.