Seat Sacrifice

G. Armour Van Horn in his "Quotes of the Day" post reminds us that it is National Volunteer Week.

And that brings me to The Giraffe Heroes Project.

The website features people who are "sticking their neck out" (get it?) to improve their community and the world.

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[Okay, it's not really a story about volunteerism in a "Giraffe Hero" kind of way, and it's slightly dated, but it does speak about volunteering of a different sort. -- MR]

My flight, and many others, due to the LAX airport closing, was canceled and I wound up spending the night in Baltimore. When I went to check in at the United counter the next morning, I saw a lot of soldiers home on leave from Iraq. Most were very young and all had their camouflage uniforms on.

Many people were stopping the troops to talk to them, asking them questions while they were waiting in the Starbucks line, or just saying, "Welcome home." In addition to all the other flights that had been canceled, the weather in Baltimore that morning was terrible and many more flights were getting backed up. So there were a lot of unhappy people in the terminal that day, but no one I saw gave the soldiers a hard time.

By the afternoon, our plane to Denver had been delayed for hours. United personnel kept asking for volunteers to give up their seat and grab a later flight. They weren't getting many takers. Finally, a United spokesperson got on the intercom and said, "Folks, as you can see, there are a lot of soldiers in the waiting area. They only have 14 days of leave and we are trying to get them where they need to go without spending any more time in an airport than they have to. We sold them all tickets, knowing we would oversell the flight, but if we can, we want to get them all on this flight. We want all the soldiers here to know that we respect what you are doing, we are here for you, and we love you."

At that, the entire gate area filled with cranky, tired, travel-weary people and all those nearby - a cross section of America - broke into sustained and heartfelt applause. The soldiers looked surprised and very modest. Most of them just looked at their boots. Many of us were wiping away tears.

And yes, people lined up to give up their seat and all the soldiers went to Denver on that flight.

[testimony from Will Ross, Administrative Law Judge via Wit and Wisdom; abridged by Mark Raymond. Story verified by Department of Defense here.]

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WISDOM for YOUR WEEK: "And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased." (Hebrews 13:16)

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