Richard Roberts – Second of four parts
I heard about a man who wanted to join the military, but he hated to march. So he went to the Army recruiter and was signing up when he asked the question, “Do you march in the Army?” And they said, “Do we march? Yes, Sir, we march!”
After the young man told them he didn’t believe he wanted to be part of the Army, he went to the Marine Corps recruiter and was about to sign up when he asked the question, “Do the Marines have to march much?” The reply was, “That’s all we do is march!”
Well, the young man didn’t want to be a Marine, so he went to the different service branches and finally came to the office of the recruiter for the paratroopers. He asked, “Do you march?” The reply was, “No, we don’t march.” Fine, thought the young man. The paratroopers are for me.
He enlisted, became a paratrooper, and began to go through training. He was told, “Here’s the plan. You jump out. The chute opens. There’s a little safety chute here. Should your chute fail, you pull it open and float down and there’s a truck to pick you up.” That’s easy enough to handle, the young man thought. No marching.
The day came for his first jump. He got on the airplane with all the other soldiers. They had on their chutes, and they hooked up. Suddenly, the green light came on, and the door opened. They jumped out. He jumped out. Nothing happened. He remembered the emergency chute and pulled it. Nothing happened. Then he looked down and said, “I bet that truck is not going to be there either!”
We have to live with the choices that we make in life. Drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, deviant behavior…any addiction or unwanted habit usually stems from a choice that was made at some point. In life, sometimes we end up with things we only thought we wanted because of a bad choice we made. Freedom doesn’t always mean we can escape the consequences of the choices we’ve made in life.
