Chance meeting is reminder to aid others

  • Published
  • By Maj. (Chaplain) Andrew Thornley
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing deputy wing chaplain
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  In my prior assignment, I was a "chaplain recruiter." Yes, chaplains are recruited too. 

As you might imagine, it was a job that took me many places and introduced me to many faces.  On a summer trip to Mobile, Alabama, I attended a conference of the Methodist church, looking for potential active-duty chaplains.  The table I set up in the exhibition hall was garnering some attention, but not much.

I was really glad when an older gentleman in a business suit came by.  Of course, I sized him up as he approached - Air Force height and weight standards, probable age, the works. He was clearly beyond the age of accession, but recruiters don't just recruit prospects for duty.

We also recruit those who can influence others to join.  Clearly this man was an "influencer," perhaps the minister of a large church who would put in a good word for the chaplain corps. 

"How's goes it with recruiting, chaplain?" he asked.  I looked up to a nametag that seemed familiar.  "You know," I replied, "there was a very famous Marine Corps general named Charles C. Krulak." 

The gentleman shot me a wry smile and said, "Yes, but I wouldn't call him famous." 

After some more small talk, he moved on to the next table. When he left the room, I pulled out my smartphone and did an internet search and there it was: Gen. Charles C. Krulak, 31st commandant of the U.S. Marines Corps, retired, 1999. 

"Not very famous," eh?  You might remember that it was Krulak who fathered the notions of the "Three Block War" and the "Strategic Corporal," warfighting concepts that have proven invaluable in the area of responsibility.  I remembered him from a not-so-subtle USA Today op-ed piece on leadership ethics that he wrote in the late 1990s when that hot potato was so much in the news.

But what was he doing at this conference?  It turns out that the general had retired from the Marine Corps, but had not yet retired from a life of service.  At age 69, when many of his peers would be slowing down and hitting the links, he agreed to become the president of Birmingham-Southern College, a school that was deeply in debt and about to close.  The first two years, he took no salary and he and his wife chose to live in the dormitory.  For those two years, in true Marine Corps fashion, he never took a day off, ever working to right the ship.  Four years later, Birmingham-Southern is growing and on course for success.

This is the Krulak, Methodist layman, that I met that hot day in Mobile. His example tells us that leadership is not about position or fame or fortune. It's about a heart that desires to serve others before serving self. As the general himself once observed, "Don't worry about looking good worry about being good."