I've had the opportunity to encounter people with a pretty good span of influence, but they all fall shy of the personal sacrifice of our veterans.
That being said, one of my favorite experiences involves a bank CEO who retired from a half trillion dollar bank, somewhere in the top six to eight in the nation, depending on how you measure it. I've never met a more authentic leader at that level, just total class. He went with his Sunday School class on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic, helping build a pediatric healthcare facility, brick by brick. As they finished their time there, they went into town to an ice cream parlor to celebrate their efforts. They're all enjoying their ice cream and the banker notices there is a lady looking at him, smiling. She gets up and comes over to their table and asks, "are you Kelly King?". He answers yes, and she replies, "some years ago, you gave a speech in New Orleans that was very meaningful to me, and I wanted you to know that." Kelly tells me, "I remember that trip, I'd taken the corporate plane down and the airport was fogged in, no way to land, the pilot went around four times, finally telling me this was our last chance to land. Final approach, the fog cleared, we set down, but I was late to the event, I had no time to interact with the audience, and I had a cold and felt terrible. I soldiered through my speech, and my commitments for later in the day meant I was ushered off the stage with no further interaction, heading right back to the airport. I felt like a failure."
Fast forward, here is a lady in the Dominican Republic telling him what an impact his speech had on her, asking, "why are you here?". Kelly said, "we've just built a children's healthcare facility, but we need some doctors." She smiled and said, "my husband is head of pediatric medicine at our nation's primary hospital, I think we can get you some doctors."
There may be coincidences in our world, but I'd like to believe, time to time, there's something more.