During several summers of the Smalley kids' high-school years, they attended an outstanding sports camp called Kanakuk Kamp in Branson, Missouri. Their time at camp transformed their lives. And the reason Kanakuk had such an impact is that the staff and counselors are prime examples of honor. Everything they did helped the Smalley teenagers to feel highly valued. All the children who attend camp win awards and ribbons, and the hugs and encouragement they receive are works of art.

In addition to demonstrating honor, the counselors teach lessons about things like spirituality, good sportsmanship, and the consequences of premarital sex. The Smalley teens' favorite lesson, however—the one that had the most profound impact on their lives—was about the "I'm Third" principle. The camp staff and counselors all strive to demonstrate this principle, which is exemplified by the heroic story they recount of an Air National Guard pilot named Johnny Ferrier.

The following is an account of a day Johnny Ferrier had been preparing for all his life. The story was originally featured in The Denver Post in the late 1950s.

Out of the sun, packed in a diamond formation and flying as one that day, the Minute Men dove at nearly the speed of sound toward a tiny emerald patch on Ohio's unwrinkled crazy quilt below. It was a little after nine on the morning of June 7, 1958, and the target of the Air National Guard's jet precision team was the famed Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, just outside Dayton.

On the ground, thousands of faces looked upward as Colonel Walt Williams, leader of the Denver-based Sabrejet team, gauged the high-speed pullout. For the Minute Men pilots—Colonel Walt Williams, Captain Bob Cherry, Lieutenant Bob Odle, Captain John Ferrier, and Major Win Coomer—the maneuver was routine, for they had given their show hundreds of times before millions of people.

Low across the fresh, green grass the jet team streaked, far ahead of the noise of the planes' own screaming engines. Judging his pull-up, Colonel Williams pressed the microphone button on top of his throttle: "Smoke on . . . now!" The diamond of planes pulled straight up into the turquoise sky, a bush tail of white smoke pluming out behind. The crowd gasped as the four ships suddenly split apart, rolling to the four points of the compass and leaving a beautiful, smoky fleur-de-lis inscribed on the heavens. This was the Minute Men's famed "flower burst" maneuver. For a minute the crowd relaxed, gazing at the tranquil beauty of the huge, white flower that had grown from the lush Ohio grasslands to fill the great bowl of sky.

Out on the end of his arm of the flower, Colonel Williams turned his Sabre hard, cut off the smoke trail, and dropped the nose of his F-86 to pick up speed for the low-altitude crossover maneuver. Then, glancing back over his shoulder, he froze in terror. Far across the sky to the east, John Ferrier's plane was rolling. He was in trouble. And his plane was headed right for the small town of Fairborn, on the edge of Patterson Field. In a moment, the lovely morning had turned to horror. Everyone saw; everyone understood. One of the planes was out of control.

Steering his jet in the direction of the crippled plane to race after it, Williams radioed urgently, "Bail out, John! Get out of there!" Johnny still had plenty of time and room to eject safely. Twice more Williams issued the command: "Bail out, Johnny! Bail out!"

Each time, Williams was answered only by a blip of smoke.

He understood immediately. John Ferrier couldn't reach the mike button on the throttle because both hands were tugging on a control stick locked in full-throw right. But the smoke button was on the stick, so he was answering the only way he could—squeezing it to tell Walt he thought he could keep his plane under enough control to avoid crashing into the houses of Fairborn.

Suddenly, a terrible explosion shook the earth. Then came a haunting silence. Walt Williams continued to call through the radio, "Johnny? Are you there? Captain? Answer me!"

No response.

Captain John T. Ferrier's Sabrejet had hit the ground midway between four houses, in a backyard garden. It was the only place where he could have crashed without killing people. The explosion had knocked a woman and several children to the ground, but no one had been hurt—with the exception of Johnny Ferrier. He had been killed instantly.

Major Win Coomer, who had flown with Ferrier for years, both in the Air National Guard and on United Airlines and had served a combat tour with him in Korea, was the first Minute Man to land. He raced to the crash scene, hoping to find his friend alive.

Instead, he found a neighborhood in shock from the awful thing that had happened. But then Coomer realized that the people felt no resentment as is ordinarily the case when a peaceful community is torn by a crash. A steady stream of people began coming to him as he stood in his flying suit beside the smoking, gaping hole in the ground where his best friend had just died.

"A bunch of us were standing together, watching the show," an elderly man with tears in his eyes told Coomer. "When the pilot started to roll, he was headed straight for us. For a second, we looked right at each other. Then he pulled up right over us and put it in there." And in deep humility, the old man whispered, "This man died for us."1

It had been a bold and courageous last act. But it was not an act alien to the nature of John Ferrier. He had been awarded one of the nation's highest medals for risking his life "beyond the call of duty" in Korea. And although he hadn't known it, he'd been preparing for this tragic day for years by practicing this most important principle:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

A few days after Johnny's death, his wife, Tulie, wrote the founder of Kanakuk Kamp, Coach Bill Lantz, this letter:

Coach,
I went through my husband's billfold last night and found the old worn card which he always carried—"I'M THIRD." He told me once he got it from you. He said that you stressed it at one of your camp sermons. Johnny may have had faults, though they were few and minor, but he followed that creed to the very end. God is first, the other fellow second, and "I'm third." Not just on June 7, 1958, but long before that—certainly as long as I've known him. I'm going to carry that same card with me from now on and see if it won't serve as a reminder. I shouldn't need it, but I'm sure I do as I have many more faults than Johnny.

The principle by which Johnny Ferrier lived and died is also the greatest lesson you can teach your teenager. At the heart of making others feel valuable, loved, and accepted is a decision to honor them, even above ourselves. To teach honor, however, we must have a clear, concrete understanding of what it means to honor someone.

© Copyright 2005 Smalley Relationship Center

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