This is a wonderful true story. You will be glad that
you read it, and I hope you will pass it on.
It happened every Friday evening, almost without fail,
when the sun resembled a giant orange and was starting to dip into the blue
ocean.
Old Ed came strolling along the beach to his favorite
pier.
Clutched in his bony hand was a bucket of shrimp. Ed
walks out to the end of the pier, where it seems he almost has the world to
himself. The glow of the sun is a golden bronze now.
Everybody's gone, except for a few joggers on the
beach. Standing out on the end of the pier, Ed is alone with his thoughts...and
his bucket of shrimp.
Before long, however, he is no longer alone. Up in the
sky a thousand white dots come screeching and squawking, winging their way
toward that lanky frame standing there on the end of the pier.
Before long, dozens of seagulls have enveloped him,
their wings fluttering and flapping wildly. Ed stands there tossing shrimp to
the hungry birds. As he does, if you listen closely, you can hear him say with
a smile, 'Thank you. Thank you.'
In a few short minutes the bucket is empty. But Ed
doesn't leave. He stands there lost in thought, as though transported to
another time and place .
When he finally turns around and begins to walk back
toward the beach, a few of the birds hop along the pier with him until he gets
to the stairs, and then they, too, fly away. And old Ed quietly makes his way
down to the end of the beach and on home.
If you were sitting there on the pier with your
fishing line in the water, Ed might seem like 'a funny old duck,' as my dad
used to say. Or, to onlookers, he's just another old codger, lost in his own
weird world, feeding the seagulls with a bucket full of shrimp.
To the onlooker, rituals can look either very strange
or very empty. They can seem altogether unimportant .....maybe even a lot of
nonsense.
Old folks often do strange things, at least in the
eyes of Boomers and Millennials.
Most of them would probably write Old Ed off, down
there in Florida ... That's too bad. They'd do well to know him better.
His full name: Eddie Rickenbacker. He was a famous
hero in World War I, and then he was in WWII. On one of his flying missions
across the Pacific, he and his seven-member crew went down. Miraculously, all
of the men survived, crawled out of their plane, and climbed into a life raft.
Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for days on
the rough waters of the Pacific. They fought the sun. They fought sharks. Most
of all, they fought hunger and thirst. By the eighth day their rations ran out.
No food. No water. They were hundreds of miles from land and no one knew where
they were or even if they were alive.
Every day across America millions wondered and prayed
that Eddie Rickenbacker might somehow be found alive.
The men adrift needed a miracle. That afternoon they
had a simple devotional service and prayed for a miracle.
They tried to nap. Eddie leaned back and pulled his
military cap over his nose. Time dragged on. All he could hear was the slap of
the waves against the raft...suddenly Eddie felt something land on the top of
his cap. It was a seagull!
Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly
still, planning his next move. With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the
gull, he managed to grab it and wring its neck. He tore the feathers off, and
he and his starving crew made a meal of it - a very slight meal for eight men.
Then they used the intestines for bait. With it, they caught fish, which gave
them food and more bait....and the cycle continued. With that simple survival
technique, they were able to endure the rigors of the sea until they were found
and rescued after 24 days at sea.
Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years beyond that
ordeal, but he never forgot the sacrifice of that first life-saving seagull...
And he never stopped saying, 'Thank you.' That's why almost every Friday night
he would walk to the end of the pier with a bucket full of shrimp and a heart
full of gratitude.
Reference: (Max Lucado, "In the Eye of the
Storm", pp...221, 225-226)
PS: Eddie Rickenbacker was the founder of Eastern
Airlines. Before WWI he was race car driver. In WWI he was a pilot and became
America's first ace. In WWII he was an instructor and military adviser, and he
flew missions with the combat pilots. Eddie Rickenbacker is a true American
hero. And now you know another story about the trials and sacrifices that brave
men have endured for your freedom.
As you can see, I chose to pass this story along as it
was passed to me from my father. It is a great story that many don't know...I
think it exemplifies a couple of life's lessons to be remembered. You've got to
be careful with old guys, you just never know what they have done during their
lifetime. It also speaks to me about how we never know what we adversity we
might face, but when we put our talent both mentally and physically together,
we can overcome, but we must never forget what we learned and to remember to
thank those that helped pull us through even if it was as something seemingly
meaningless as a seagull and to pay it forward.
And now......the rest of the story.
Captain Edward Vernon Rickenbacker was just the first
American Ace of WW I, he was the highest scoring ace of WW I with 26 victories
against aircraft and 5 baloons, higher than any other American fighter pilot in
WW I. That made him a quintuple ace. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of
Honor for his heroism. He was also awarded the French Croix de Guerre. Eddie
Rickenbacker was the American version of the Germans’ Red Baron.
Rickenbacker left the military after WW I as a major,
but he preferred to keep the title of Captain. In his own words, “I felt that
my rank of captain was earned and deserved.”
In 1921 he founded the Rickenbacker Motor Company. The
company produced stylish, mid-priced cars with 6 and later, 8 cylinder engines.
He left the company in 1926 because of disagreements with his partners. The
company went bankrupt in 1927.
In 1933, Rickenbacker joined the General Motors
Aeronautics Division as its VP. The GM division included Eastern Air Transport
which would soon become Eastern Airlines. The airline became a success by 1938
and Rickenbacker raised $3.5 million to buy the airline from GM. He built the
airline into one of the biggest in the country.
In 1941, Rickenbacker was involved in a crash when the
Eastern Airlines plane he was in flew into the side of a hill. The pilots and
eleven passengers were killed, but Eddie survived which added to his legend.
Due to heavy injuries, he spent the next ten months recovering but was left
with a limp for the rest of his life.
Although he was a civilian, Rickenbacker spent a lot
of time raising money for Britain and the United States at the beginning of the
war. When the above related incident happened, he was on his way to New Guinea
to deliver a secret message to Ge. MacArthur. The story makes it sound like he
was a part of the flight crew, but in this case he was still a civilian
passenger. Nevertheless, he took command of the situation and all of the other
survivors credited his iron will for their survival.
In 1943 Eddie was again asked to help the war effort
by travelling to the Soviet Union to observe how the Soviets were using the
equipment the US had sent them and lend his expertise. That was his overt
mission. He also had a covert mission to observe the Soviet military and report
back on their readiness and training. Once again he fulfilled his mission.
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