Charles Plumb was a US 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, "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 had 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 at 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. He
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.

Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is
really important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you,
congratulate
someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a
compliment, or just do something nice for no reason

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

===============

I am posting this story as my way of thanking you for your part in
packing my parachute.
You were there from the time I got the bad news of the PCa, through the
complications of my RP and through my depressions.

And I hope you will send it on to those who have helped pack yours!

~ Curits

knowledge is power - growing old is mandatory - growing wise is optional    
"Many more men die with prostate cancer than of it. Growing old is
invariably fatal. Prostate cancer is only sometimes so."
http://community.webtv.net/PALMER_ENT/doc