The Gift

Open Letter to Service Men and Women

It's December 1970. I am part of the Disaster Recovery Team on 24 hour call on this Air Force Base in the middle of nowhere.

This is my first Christmas away from home. I am lonely and over 1,000 miles from where I know where Christmas is really happening. It's sure not happening here. It's not snowing and it's not even cold. There is no one to eat dinner with, there are no parties to go to.  Most of my new buddies were able to get leave.

On Christmas eve, I sit by myself in my sparse base quarters. There are no presents under the tree. There is no tree in my room. Nothing to open tonight or tomorrow morning because I immediately unwrapped gifts from home as I received them weeks ago. So I find myself on my own and dejected. I feel the world has forgotten about me.  It is at this lowest point, there is a knock on my door.

Lo and behold. An Air Force nurse -- someone who I have known only for a short while-- presents me a small wrapped holiday gift. Embarassed because I have nothing for her, I fumble with the wrapping, and open it --it is just a bottle of inexpensive cologne. I am deeply moved by this gift than more than any other I had ever received.

I cannot thank her enough. I remain grateful to this day for her kindness and her thoughfulness. I feel this event teaches me a valuable life lesson.

A gift doesn't have to be expensive -- or even has to be something the person wants -- to have remarkable impact on a life. It sounds corny, but the simple act of reaching out to touch someone in an unexpected way is truly a gift itself. Especially those who are alone and afraid.

Thanks to a  nurse named Joanne in Little Rock and a $5 bottle of cologne taught me I receive a gift I can never forget on my first Christmas away from home.

All I can offer you is the small gift of this absolutely true story. If you are in a place you don't want to be, and feeling all alone, I hope you can take comfort, as I once did, in the receiving or the giving of the the gift of a simple act of kindness. 

Robert W. T. Beardsley

Captain, USAF, 1970

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Postscript: A Christmas Past

From L to R:   Me (reclining in front of my future wife); Kay; Don; Joanne (the nurse who gave me the gift), Cookie (who married Don), another Bob (who I haven't kept in touch with) and Phil (I was the best man at his wedding).  Both Kay and Cookie have passed on way too soon, both leaving loving families and two children each behind. Don retired after 30 years in the AF and lives in California. He has remarried. Joanne and her children live with her husband, George, in Pittsburgh.  

Soldiers of Peace

Seven years ago today, I climbed aboard the New York commuter train from Princeton at 6:30 am to head to work.  The day was was brilliantly crisp and clear. Unusually so. I was on the east side of the train as it chugged into the Elizabeth area approaching Newark. The NY Skyline was so extraordinarily visible this day, and I found myself I looking at it in a way I hadn't for some time.  And there they stood -- the Twin Towers -- magnificently impressive viewed at even 20 miles away. 

The view was breathtaking that morning and had nothing happened that day, I would still recall the crystal clear presentation the skyline made that day.

There were people sitting on this same train going to work in the City and even some in the Trade Center.  They would arrive there by 8:30 am via the Path line. Just in time.  Some of them -- several who embarked in Princeton with me -- would not return to their cars that night -- or any other time. We knew who they were later because their photos were put up in the Princeton train station by family members.

Shortly after 9 am that day, one of my writers excitedly spread the news that a "small plane" had flown into the WTC tower. That was the first report.   By 10:30 that morning, both Towers were gone, the Pentagon was similarly attacked and another commercial airplane went down in rural Pennsylvania. No one really knew what was happening but it was clear that we were under attack.  We in Newark who worked in tall buildings there were given the word to go home.

Getting home would not be easy this day. 

Some walked, some ran, some jumped, some cried and some just phoned home. Some for the last time. A few panicked but the majority of people did not. They did what they had to do to make the best of a bad situation.  Some firemen and police put their lives on the line to rescue people, and some gave their lives in the attempt.

And many others died that day in the city. Over 2,700 in all.  They unexpectedly went to war that morning armed only with briefcases, purses, laptop computers, and Palm Pilots.  Many, if not all, had just enjoyed the Labor Day weekend, or were thinking about the kid or grandkid going to school for the first time that day. Some were worried about the big project at work, and maybe even some started thinking about the coming holiday season. No one was prepared for how ugly it would become.  

Anyone in the NYC area who was there that day and survived has his or her own story.  And anyone who endured some of the worst have scars that they will carry with them forever.   And even those of us who were not called upon to do the extraordinary will remember that day.

We were all soldiers of peace in this undeclared war.

What really makes me upset still about this war is that the main protagonist still lives on and is still at war with us.  If there is one major failing of our government during the past 8 years, it has to be that Bin Laden is still at large. It is a promise unkept and IMHO other sins of our government pales in comparison. I can only hope the next administration doesn't rest until this madman is brought to justice.  

Until then, I still go to work armed only with a briefcase and a Blackberry.

Do you have any stories to share about 9/11?  Enter comments below!