"WHO PACKS YOUR PARACHUTE"-- CUBMASTER MINUTE 
Charles Plumb, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, was a 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!"
“That’s right; how 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. He says, "I kept
wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform and 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, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn't know.
"Who' s packing your parachute?" Everyone has someone who provides what they
need as they face daily challenges. Take the time 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.
Great Salt Lake Council