Pay It Forward

In Memory of Christopher Kubacki

Thank you, Chris, for sharing the gift of your life with us. Thank you for your friendship. Thank you for your brotherhood. Thank you for being someone who anyone could always trust. And, thank you for always putting others first. Thank you for your fine example as a teammate, and thank you for always leading by example as an Officer on the team. Thank you for being a fine example of a Christian, a father, a husband. And, thank you for never compromising your values. Yes, we cannot forget, thank you especially for your courage in how you approached your battle with cancer. You left us all in awe.

For everything, Chris, that you imparted to our lives, THANK YOU!

That’s just my short list of thank yous. I share them because I don’t know any other way to face the sorrow we all feel today than to express my gratitude here before God and to all of you for the profound gift of knowing Chris. I hope you’ll commit to doing the same, and later I’m going to urge you to take one extra small but important step.

Now, some more thank yous.

Thank You No. 1: Thank you, Chris, for being someone I wanted to get to know.

As many of you likely appreciate, Chris was an avid parachutist with the WWII Airborne Demonstration Team of which I am a member. Chris was our Operations Officer—and a fine one at that. One of his duties was to create the jump manifest for each day’s jumps. A jump manifest represents the order in which jumpers will ultimately exit the aircraft over the drop zone.

It’s a fact of jumping that one person is always assigned to stand in the door and everyone is lined up down the fuselage after him.

I was a student when I first encountered Chris. It was in July of 2016, on a Thursday morning at 6:00 AM. “Manifest call”—our morning briefing—seemed especially rowdy that morning. But, then again, it was only my second jump, and I freely admit I was nervous. (On my first jump, I was an add on, so I missed Chris on that one.)

Chris stood patiently in front of our team—tall, studious, intent, and wearing his uniform he looked as authentic to the 1944 “real deal” as you could get. He wasn’t fazed by all the noise and commotion in the room. He stood there like a teacher waiting to start class, peering through his vintage gold wire-rim glasses as he looked down at his clip board and the day’s jump order. Then he quickly raised his head and shouted, “listen up!” The room fell silent.

Well, guess whose name he called first. Mine! He had assigned me to the door—an open door of an aircraft at 1500 feet. This man who always looked so kind, so humane, a kind of mid-western saintly…was not a saint at all! He was trying to torture me…if not worse!

As a moment of fear surged through my body, I’m sure I turned pale and instinctively looked at Chris with spite. Inside, though, I thought to myself, “I really like this guy. And, I hope I get to know him more.”

That was Chris. It was impossible not to like him. And, people who saw who he was wanted to get to know him more. I was one of them. And, I was fortunate for it.

Thank You No. 2: Thank you, Chris, for being the quiet man.

There’s a saying, “Loud men win battles. Quiet men win wars.” Chris was never one for bravado or beating his chest. Quite the opposite. But therein lay the reason I enjoyed Chris’s company and so did everyone else. He let his character do the talking.

We sleep in barracks where we jump. As luck would have it, after some time with the team, I ended up being Chris’s bunkmate. I had the top bunk. He had the bottom. In such close quarters, you really get to know people. There are no secrets hid in barracks life, and everyone’s idiosyncrasies, strengths and weaknesses become evident.

What I fast discovered in Chris was an amiable soul with a dry sense of humor and a thoughtfulness about him that made him stand out. Standing out isn’t easy in a barracks full of hard chargers, many of whom are prior or current service, and most of whom are highly opinionated, high energy, and…high decibel level!

But Chris stood out, nonetheless. This quiet man from Indiana—a graduate from Indiana U and Hoosier through and through—was impervious to it all. Nothing phased him. If there could be such a thing as “whisper loudly,” that was Chris. He was the quiet man. His character did all the talking and we loved and respected him for it.

Thank You No. 3: Thank you, Chris, for always leading by example.

That goes hand in hand with being the quiet man. Chris got things done and inspired others to do the same. He was “default forward” in his actions and showed ownership for everything in his charge. That’s critical to the morale and success of a team.

Chris had a “Pioneer work ethic.” You’ve heard of a Puritan work ethic, no doubt. The difference is that Pioneers make work look like it’s fun and not a punishment. That was Chris. For him, work was fun!

Chris had an endless energy and I can assure you, most people would have found themselves quickly exhausted trying to keep up with him.

A typical day at our facility starts with completing our jumps and then packing our parachutes. After two jumps—sometimes three—most of us on the team are physically and mentally exhausted. But our day doesn’t stop there. It continues with all variety of work projects that go to improving and upgrading our facility. Chris, along with his best friend Gene Krupa who is here today and Peter Hugh who may be watching online, would dive into anything that needed to get done—especially if it involved Chris’s forte, woodwork.

As if Chris’s contributions during the day weren’t enough, after dinner, Chris would transition over to his role as Operations Officer, often working until midnight to create the jump manifests for the next day.

Chris had a keen eye for placing people in the right spot based on their experience level, skill set, and strengths as a jumper. He approached his role with absolute care for our safety and success. We were all the beneficiaries of his diligence. Jumping is an endeavor where we put our lives in each other’s hands. I had every faith in Chris as a fellow jumper and as the Operations Officer assigning me to my spot in the stick.

I have just two more thank yous and then I’ll close.

Thank You No. 4: Thank you, Chris, for being a man of character.

Wow, there’s so much I could say on this one. Not only did I trust Chris with matters involving my own life, I would have trusted him with anything. Chris was the type of man that did the right thing, not just when people were watching, but when no one was watching.

(That included matters of telling the truth. Chris could be honest in a way that was candid but non-offensive. And, if you were on the receiving end, you wanted more.)

Of course, God was watching. Chris was a firm believer in God’s son Jesus Christ as his Savior. But like everything else, Chris practiced his faith quietly and unassumingly. It would not have been Chris’s nature to flaunt his faith or force it on others. He rather chose the path of humility and led by example.

Early on here I referred to Chris standing in our manifest call looking like a teacher waiting to start class. Well, Chris was in fact a teacher—a middle school teacher. Chris taught middle school up until when Chris’s son Max was born. And that fact about Chris—that he spent his formative career years dealing with 11 to 13-year olds—made him a perfect fit for his role on our team.

Yes, our maturity level is not always the highest. And, of all the character traits that I will be grateful for most in Chris beyond his integrity, I would have to say it was his patience. He did have the patience of a saint.

I’m sure with us Chris felt like he was in charge of a class where he already knew who among us was going to be in detention. Chris’s body language, especially his stare at some of our pranks and antics always followed by some facial expression and an occasional smirk always told a story. I enjoyed watching it all.

During his duties as Operations Officer, Chris must have felt like he was always herding cats, trying to get people to follow directions, and in some cases feeling like he had to spell everything out in crayon for us. And he loved it! Chris found a place with us where he could let the strength of his character shine and where he could feel at home doing so.

Thank You No. 5: Now the big thank you. Thank you, Chris, for how you battled cancer. 

This is a tough one because Chris’s battle with cancer deserves to be put in perspective with the rest of Chris’s life.

Courage in a man is defined well before he ever comes to the point where he must show courage. Chris’s character was galvanized well before he was ever diagnosed. But the fact remains it was Chris’s cancer that showed us the sum of what this man was made of. Those of us gathered here today are in awe.

I want to share with you a quote by Pericles, an Ancient Greek Ruler and General, who lived 400 years before Christ.

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.

Pericles

That was Chris. The danger, of course, was cancer. The glory was the presence Chris now enjoys with the Heavenly Host.

Despite Chris’s cancer, he still lived life to its fullest, not backing away from the danger but making sure that he still accomplished his life’s goals. He trained hard two years ago as we prepared for the 75^th Anniversary of D-Day. He jumped with us in Normandy last year, the culmination of all that training. And he made his 100^th jump back here in the states, to be recognized and pinned by a WWII Veteran. He saw his son graduate from high school, and any of us who are parents know that it doesn’t get much better than that. And, he saw his son get his driver’s license. He saw his son on his way to independence.

It’s said that the mass of men lives of quiet desperation. Chris refused to be one of them.

Chris’s example of how he faced his cancer—still making his love for his wife Karin and his son Max his priority—is one that we are beckoned to learn from and one we should always be grateful for.

Chris, I don’t know how you did it. I have only rarely seen this kind of courage.

So how do we really say thank you? Pay it forward

I said at the start that I don’t know any other way to face the sorrow we all feel today than to express my gratitude here before God and to all of you for the profound gift of knowing Chris.

Gratitude protects us from sorrow becoming a dead-end street. Gratitude encourages us, it inspires us, it makes us realize that we are not victims to our loss but can rather honor what we had by doing something powerful with it. It’s no wonder that the command to give thanks appears repeatedly in the Bible. And, if you research the topic you’ll see that even science says that the ancients were right, gratitude heals. Sorrow is a feeling. Gratitude is a choice.

Back in our barracks, every morning Chris’s phone alarm would go off to the sound of a bugle playing revile. I use that same morning alarm on my phone, and I heard it this morning. It’s a call for me to get after the day and do something with it. And, now I will also always associate it with Chris, too.

You’ll all remember small details like that about Chris, things that make your experience with him unique. We all will.

So what I am asking you to do is find those things you are grateful for about Chris, and when the tears come—and they will for all of us—let them also be a bugle call to get after the day, and pay your gratitude for Chris forward so he can still have the impact on others that he had on each of us. That can be powerful.

That’s the best way we can say thank you to Chris, and say thank you to God, for the example of a life well lived.

Greater trumpets will sound someday, and we will be with Chris again.