A history story.
Here is a history story for Dave. It is taken from Paul Fussel’s book Wartime: Toward the end of World War II, a badly damaged B-24 was returning from a bombing mission in Germany. Over Hungary, the pilot told the crew to throw out every thing moveable to lighten the plane. One man even emptied out his pockets and threw out a steel-backed pocket book of Scripture (thought to protect the heart from bullet wounds when carried in a breast pocket). Lightening the plane did not work however --- the plane went down, the man was captured and spent the last year of the war in a German prison camp. Thirty years later the man received a package from a woman in Hungary who had found the book in her field. His name and address were inscribed in the cover of the book. The book arrived as the man was recovering from brain surgery. The man’s wife said that arrival of the book probably saved the man’s life as his mood went from one of morbid despondency to one of hopefulness and optimism.