However, the reserve was packed by an "expert", and I was certainly glad for that fact, once.
I don't know about the Navy, but the Army requires parachute riggers to be jump qualified, and they jump regularly with chutes that are chosen at random. That ought to be good for QA!
If Plumb is a real man (and this is not an urban legend), he might be a good guest for the Show.
Congressman Billybob
But what if it did have the feel of an “urban legend”?
I often see cogent observations and quotes set aside or ignored because proof is not available. Should we disregard the message of the words as being without merit when the author cannot be confirmed? Many of the things I read are not diminished for lack of confirmation.
Consider the following quotation; “"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policies followed by a dictatorship”.
This quote is often attributed to Alexander Tytler. I can find no valid reason to believe that Tytler ever said those words. The message of the quote is not diminished for me because history indicates that they are sensible words. To quote Teddy Roosevelt on the “Fall of the Republic”, which can be confirmed, "The Roman Republic fell, not because of the ambition of Caesar or Augustus, but because it had already long ceased to be in any real sense a republic at all. When the sturdy Roman plebeian, who lived by his own labor, who voted without reward according to his own convictions, and who with his fellows formed in war the terrible Roman legion, had been changed into an idle creature who craved nothing in life save the gratification of a thirst for vapid excitement, who was fed by the state, and who directly or indirectly sold his vote to the highest bidder, then the end of the Republic was at hand, and nothing could save it. The laws were the same as they had been, but the people behind the laws had changed, and so the laws counted for nothing."
I have read Davy Crockett’s “Not Yours to Give” speech before the House of Representatives. Edward Sylvester Ellis supposedly published this in “The Life of Colonel David Crockett”. I have not confirmed this but nonetheless listen to the brief speech to congress and the words of Horatio Bunce. The message of the story is not diminished for me because the Constitution substantiates the exact premise of the story and the Constitution can be confirmed.
I understand the actually price of free corn after reading “The Wild and Free Pigs of the Okefenokee Swamp” by Frank Redmond. I haven’t confirmed that the events in the story actually took place as related by the author but the story remains undiminished for me because I understand the mind of mankind.
I do not subscribe to all “urban legends” but I do take stock of the message. I do not fear the alligators that reside in the New York sewers.
This story has a good message and for me the message will far surpass anything more I may come to learn of its origin.