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Publication Date 6-3-10 Sometimes, you just get lucky. I was thinking about that this week while I was preparing a Memorial Day speech. In preparation, I’d been reading about the recent passing of the oldest living Medal of Honor winner. His name was John Finn and he was at Pearl Harbor on December 7th. He’d joined the Navy back in the Twenties, when good jobs were hard to come by and thirty bucks a month and three meals a day didn’t sound too bad. “I was just doing a job I got paid for,” he said, “and then December 7th came along and we were in a big damn war.” Even though he had no plans or desire for being any sort of hero, he won the Medal of Honor for grabbing a .50 caliber machine gun and firing back at the Japanese planes for two and a half hours, despite getting 21 shrapnel wounds. I’ve always thought that being a hero required good character and bad luck. Bad luck to find yourself in a place where no rational human being would want to be and good character that makes you stand up and do what needs to be done, no matter what you want to do. I don’t have any personal experience, but I’d be willing to bet that unlike Rambo or most other movie warriors, the real war cry of most our heroes is something along the lines of, “Oh, crap.” Reading his story, the right guy just happening to end up at the wrong place at the right time, made me think about luck. If I’d been born one year earlier, my draft number would have been “1.” Some of the folks who read this won’t really understand what I mean by that, but if you’re over fifty you probably do. Just let me say that my lucky Number One would’ve put me at the head of the line, quite probably with a plane ticket to Vietnam in my future. By the time I did turn eighteen, Uncle Sam wasn’t hiring anymore and I didn’t have to worry about my favorite uncle changing my plans. The whole course of my life, for good or ill, has been changed just by the simple coincidence that my age made serving my country voluntary instead of mandatory. One of the few things I learned in college came from an offhand comment from one of my professors. He said, “I believe in good luck, and in my life I’ve had my share of it, but I’ve found that the harder I work, the more good luck comes my way.” I believe that, too, and there have been many bits of luck that I’ve made break my way because of thought and effort. But, I’ve also had some flat out good luck, some things that I haven’t earned or deserved and on most days, I recognize that. I’ve never had to be the right guy in the wrong place at the right time, and most days I recognize how fortunate I am. I know Memorial Day has passed, but while I was doing the research for my speech, it occurred to me that it might be okay to express our thanks and gratitude for a couple of weeks instead of just one day. If for nothing else, to just take the time to recognize how lucky some of us are. Copyright 2010 Brent Olson Brent Olson |
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