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Article A Place For Everyone One organization that strives to match its people to the right job is the U. S. Military. This is particularly true now that it employs an all-volunteer force. If each function in the military command does not work at top efficiency, and interact well with all the other parts, terrible and sometimes deadly breakdowns occur. Nobody is more keenly aware of this fact than a combat pilot. Take, for example, Charlie Plumb. He retired as a captain of the U.S. Navy. A graduate of Annapolis, he served in Vietnam in the mid 1960’s, flying seventy-five missions from the aircraft carrier, U.S. Kitty Hawk. On an aircraft carrier, you can readily observe how all the pieces of the military puzzle come together to support each other. A carrier is often described as being like a floating city with its crew of more than five thousand men and women, a population greater than that of some towns in which its crew members grew up. It must be self-sustaining and each of its crew, seventeen departments, must function as a team in order to accomplish its mission. Every pilot knows of the team effort required to put a jet in the air. It takes hundreds of team members utilizing dozens of technical specialties to launch, monitor, support, land, and maintain an aircraft. Even more people are involved if that plane is armed for combat. Charles Plumb undoubtedly recognized that many people worked tirelessly to keep him flying. But despite the efforts of the best trained air support in the world, Plumb found himself in a North Vietnamese prison as a POW after his F4 Phantom Jet was shot down on May 19, 1967, during his seventy-fifth mission. Plumb was held prisoner for nearly six grueling years, part of the time in the infamous Hanoi Hilton. During those years, he and his fellow prisoners were humiliated, starved, tortured, and forced to live in squalid conditions. Yet he did not let the experience break him. He now says, “Our unity through our faith and our love for our country were the great strength which kept us going through some very difficult times.” Plumb was released from his imprisonment on February 18, 1973, and continued his career in the Navy. But an incident that happened years after his return to the United States marked his life as surely as his imprisonment. One day, he and his wife Kathy, were eating in a restaurant when a man came to the table and said, “You’re Plumb. You flew jet fighters in Vietnam.” “That’s right,” answered Plumb, “I did.” “It was Fighter Squadron 114 on the Kitty Hawk. You were shot down. You parachuted into enemy hands,” the man continued. “You spent six years as a prisoner of war.” The former pilot was taken aback. He looked at the man, trying to identify him, but could not. “How in the world did you know that?” Plumb finally asked. “I packed your parachute,” the man said. Plumb was staggered. All he could do was struggle to his feet and shake the man’s hand. “I must tell you,” Plumb finally said, “I’ve said a lot of prayers of thanks for your nimble fingers, but I didn’t realize I would have the opportunity of saying thanks in person.” What if the Navy had put the wrong person in the position of parachute rigger, the anonymous and the rarely thanked job that this man had performed during the Vietnam War? Charlie Plumb would not have known about it until it was too late and we would not have even known where the breakdown had occurred because Plumb would not have lived to tell the tale. Today, Charlie Plumb is a motivational speaker for Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and other organizations. He often tells the story of the man who packed his parachute, and he uses this to deliver a message on teamwork. He says, “In a world where downsizing forces us to do more with less, we must empower the team. Packing others’ parachutes can mean the difference in survival — yours and the teams.” For more information about Ken Chapman and Associates’ Leadership Development Programs, contact Ken Chapman at 205.366.0265 or email Ken at kchapman@leaderscode.com. <End> |
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