Last week I attended the Carlsbad Chamber First Friday Breakfast and heard a story that has stuck with me. It was a reminder of three things: 1 – give others the benefit of the doubt, 2 – do random acts of kindness, 3 – pride in America is unifying.
Bill Driscoll, a retired Navy Commander and decorated Air Force One pilot, spoke about how to approach problems when you are under pressure in a business setting. While this content was great, he told a personal story that actually induced tears (although I was careful to not let them spill out of my eye balls as it would be embarrassing in such a professional setting).
Although Commander Driscoll is retired, he stays in shape by running on the beach. A while ago he would run by one house that displayed a tattered American flag high on their pole. He grew increasingly agitated every time he jogged past this house. Clearly the owners had enough money to replace a flag if they could afford a beach-front property. He began to take the condition of the flag personally and could no longer be inert. What he really wanted to do was write a nasty letter to help the flag neglecters see their disrespect. But he took a different approach.
One morning Driscoll jogged up to the infamous house and left a new flag on the doorstep with a note. Dear neighbor, Please accept this gift from someone who loves this country, as I’m sure you do. Bill Driscoll.
A few weeks later Mrs. Driscoll relayed a phone message to her husband. A lady had called to thank him for the flag. She explained that her husband had passed away a number of months ago and the putting up the tattered flag was one of the last things he did. She hadn’t been out of the house in a while and had not noticed the state of the stars and stripes in her yard. She replaced it with the new flag and knew her patriotic husband would be smiling down.
Posted by: Anne Carr, anne@boltpr.com
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment