Hank Smith: 00:03 Hello everyone. Welcome to FollowHIM Favorites. This is where John and I share a single story to go with each week’s lesson. John, one section of the Doctrine & Covenants this week, section 18. I know you have a great story for this. In fact, I’ve heard it before. Hit it.

John Bytheway: 00:17 Hank. There’s so many things you could draw from section 18, but I’m gonna focus on verse 10. The worth of souls is great in the sight of God. Now, Hank, I don’t know how old you were in April of 1975. Okay,

Hank Smith: 00:30 You know, I could have been a million years old. I don’t remember. Uh, yeah. How old was your spirit? How old was my spirit at that point? Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:38 So what was going on was the fall of Saigon in the Vietnam War, but they were trying to evacuate the South Vietnamese out of Saigon. The communists were coming and it was gonna be really, really bad. So you can find pictures of people climbing on top of the embassy to get in helicopters to get out of there, there’s an aircraft carrier called the USS Midway. The deck of this thing was filled with helicopters evacuating people. April, I think it was 29th or 30th of ‘75, there is a South Vietnamese major who gets into a little Cessna 01 bird dogs. Basically like a little Cessna 172 doesn’t know where to go and heads out to sea, but he finally, he finds the Midway, he flies over it. He waggles his wings, he tries the radio. Nothing works. I’ll just read from history.net. The pilot dropped three paper notes from the plane.

  01:31 They blew over the side before the ship’s crew could snatch them. On the next pass, he stuffed a fourth note into his pistols leather holster to weigh it down. And sailors rushed to grab the little package. After it hit the deck, they read a scribbled message written on a crumpled chart of South Vietnam and there are some misspellings with this guy’s Vietnamese, can you move the helicopter to the other side? I can land on your runway. I can fly for one hour more. We have enough time to move. Please rescue me. Major Wong wife and five child, they didn’t know. They thought, let him ditch the plane next to the ship and we’ll get him. But he had five children stuffed in this little Cessna. Hank, I gave a talk years ago about my first solo, and I talked about my shoulder touching one end of the plane, my other shoulder touching my flight instructor’s shoulder.

  02:27 Her shoulder touching they’re crammed. He’s got five kids in there, and a wife and a wife, and the wife is holding a newborn, basically. Please rescue me. And Captain Larry Chambers has only been the skipper for four or five weeks. To make room they literally pushed helicopters off the side of the ship. Why? Because the worth of souls is what? It’s worth it. It’s great. And he’s like, we’ve gotta do this. We’ve gotta rescue this. He’s never landed on a carrier. He’s got a Cessna that’s a tail dragger. Instead of having, they call it tricycle landing gear, where the nose gear is in front of you and like a tricycle, you know, the nose gear and two more. This one is dragging the tail is, that’s where the gear is. Go like this. So it’s a whole different thing. He’s trying to land on a carrier. The whole crew runs over, they’re cheering and this major gets out. His wife’s holding a baby, these little kids. And Larry Chambers, the skipper thought, I’m going to get court marshaled. Because he had to move helicopters off the deck to make room for these.

Hank Smith: 03:40 I pushed a $50 million helicopter off the side

John Bytheway: 03:43 Pushing these Hueys in the water. I’m like, wait, can I have one? But I love the story because he said, I felt my grandma, Larry Chamber said, talking to me, my conscience talking to me saying, you’re gonna have to live with this decision for years. What are you gonna do? And they rescued that little family because the worth of souls is great. So I love that story.

Hank Smith: 04:04 He might say, I’m gonna lose my commission. I’m gonna lose my job. But it’s worth it.

John Bytheway: 04:07 What’s more important, humans or helicopters?

Hank Smith: 04:10 What a classic story. The worth of souls is great in the sight of God. Wow. That’s awesome. We hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. It’s called FollowHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcast. In fact, our guest, Dr. Steve Harper, is going to do something with that verse 10 that is really gonna blow your mind. It’s special. Yes. So we hope you’ll join us over there and then come back next week, we’ll do another followHIM favorite.