Posted by
John Caile on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 11:19:37 AM
A good reminder for all of us:
The Thanksgiving Angels Of Flight 3405
Bob Evans - Information Week
November 25, 2009
As Thanksgiving looms, we sometimes overlook those better angels of our nature that are all around us. And that's a mistake.
Last
night—two days before Thanksgiving, with airports and airplanes jammed
with travelers eager to get home—my wife and I were lucky enough to
squeak aboard an earlier flight that would get us home three hours
earlier than planned, and we gratefully jammed ourselves into the last
row of the plane. I felt relieved and lucky—but within the next hour I
would learn just how much I have to be grateful for on this and every
Thanksgiving.
My
education began shortly after takeoff when the attendants on flight
#3405, just after announcing that the beverage service was about to
begin, added that "We wanted you all to know that we're honored to have
traveling with us tonight Private Aaron of the United States Army,
who's one of the young men and women who by being so brave allow the
rest of us to enjoy the freedom we so cherish. Please join us in
thanking this young hero for his great service to our country."
And
there was a huge ovation from throughout the plane for this courageous
young warrior, who represents precisely what Winston Churchill meant
when he said, "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand
ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."
A
moment later, I turned to the flight attendant working in the galley
right behind our seats and thanked her for giving all of us a chance to
thank that young man for his service and for paying the price necessary
so that the rest of us can sleep soundly in our beds. She nodded,
seemed a bit distracted, and than said that her own son—19 years old,
just like the PFC on our plane—had recently joined the Army and was
about to finish basic training.
She
then showed us a picture of her son taken right before he he left for
the Army with his arm around his very proud mom, and also shared with
us a letter he'd just written to her with the oversized words "THANK
YOU!!" splashed across the top and bottom of the page. "He's so brave,"
she said, "but he's so young!" And then she went back to her galley and
engaged in some work that would prevent the passengers from seeing a
member of the flight crew in anything less than a state of perfect
control.
The
woman in the aisle seat across from me got up and gave the flight
attendant a quick hug; when this woman sat down again, she looked over
and said that in some way she couldn't quite explain, she felt a
connection with the flight attendant because this passenger had just
experienced the familial emotional strain so evident from the flight
attendant: the passenger's mother had just died and the grieving
daughter was returning from the funeral.
"My
mother lived a long, long, and wonderful life," she said. "But these
young men and women in the military are only 19 or 20 and they're
putting their lives on the line for the rest of us." So we chatted
about that for a bit, and about her mom, and about the simple blessings
of families, parents and children, and long lives filled with memories
that some of these young warriors will not get to experience.
Then
the flight attendant leaned in and said, "As brave as that young
soldier is, there's another boy on this plane who's at least as brave.
He's 8 years old, his liver has been failing for a couple of years, and
they've got a donor for him in Pittsburgh—we have him and his parents
in the first row and as soon as the plane lands they'll rush him off to
UPMC for the surgery. He's a real fighter."
By
this point my head was spinning as all my usual standard, selfish,
narrow-minded, and astonishingly petty flight-related thoughts flashed
like billboards in front of me: I hope I don't get a middle seat, I
hope I don't get stuck next to an overweight person, I hope the person
I front of me doesn't put his seat back, I hope there's room in the
overhead right above me for my bag, I hope the flight's not 10 minutes
late or I'll be terribly inconvenienced, I hope the person next to me
doesn't try to say hello, I hope the taxi line isn't too long...
And
then the flight attendant reappeared with a conspiratorial grin and a
bag filled with snacks for the young soldier to enjoy wherever that
night's travels were taking him, and spontaneously several of us tossed
more snacks and some cash into the bag. It was just a small way—a tiny
way—to say thank you.
So
I believe in angels, and I believe they were aboard flight 3405 last
night. They were with the little boy who's about to have the chance for
a normal life with a new liver, just as they were on the ground with
the other little boy whose tragic death in a car crash made the healthy
liver available.
Those
angels were with the young soldier who so humbly and wonderfully
represented the 1,000,000 men and women of the U.S. military who let us
sleep soundly, and who would never consider asking the sort of
questions that preoccupy me because they're focused on keeping us safe
from those who would do us harm.
And
I believe those angels are with the flight attendant's warrior son,
whose name is David, and with the just-buried mother of the woman
across from me who tried to comfort that flight attendant.
Perhaps,
on this Thanksgiving, inspired by what they showed me on last night's
flight 3405, I plan to show them at least a glimpse of the
better angels of my own human nature by giving thanks for my many blessings and by
keeping in my thoughts and prayers our men and women in the military,
and that little boy facing a liver transplant, and his family, and the
woman who'd just lost her mother.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!