- Location
- Retired in Minneapolis
IN today's Minneapolis Star Tribune I read an article about Henry Shelton, retired four-star Army
general, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, diehard
paratrooper and grandfather of six
This is the full article: http://www.concordmonitor.com/stories/news/recent2002/shelton_2002.shtml
Raised on a North Carolina farm, Shelton, 60, did his own yardwork. On this
Saturday morning in March, he was trimming a big oak and a smaller tree
nearby in a neighbor's yard.
Work on the oak went easily, and the smaller tree, whose three-inch thick limb
dipped over a fence onto Shelton's property, appeared to offer little challenge.
Shelton propped a metal ladder against the tree and, carrying a chain saw,
climbed about 10 feet up. He started to cut the limb, expecting it to fall away
to the left. But a dead branch resting on top of the limb drove it straight down.
The limb crashed into one of the ladder's extension arms, flipping the ladder
around the tree.
Shelton felt himself falling. He glanced down and saw the four-foot-high
chain-link fence coming up rapidly. To avoid straddling it, he pulled his feet
together quickly, as he'd been taught to do as a paratrooper. His feet caught
the fence, propelling him headfirst toward the ground.
"What irony this is," he thought. "I've got 400 jumps, some from a
20,000-foot range at night, in the dead of night, with an oxygen mask
on, unable to see anything down below on the ground at the moment of
leaving the plane. And I had walked away from them all basically
unscathed."
During 38 years in the military, including two combat tours in Vietnam
and another in the Persian Gulf War, Shelton had suffered nothing
worse than a broken ankle. A towering 6-foot-5 figure accustomed to
daily four-mile jogs, he'd never spent a day in a hospital.
The full page article goes on to show how he got surgery and a rehab program and is now walking. Pretty darn lucky. This
shows, to me, that even very bright and capable people, should maybe leave tree work to the professionals.
Tom
general, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, diehard
paratrooper and grandfather of six
This is the full article: http://www.concordmonitor.com/stories/news/recent2002/shelton_2002.shtml
Raised on a North Carolina farm, Shelton, 60, did his own yardwork. On this
Saturday morning in March, he was trimming a big oak and a smaller tree
nearby in a neighbor's yard.
Work on the oak went easily, and the smaller tree, whose three-inch thick limb
dipped over a fence onto Shelton's property, appeared to offer little challenge.
Shelton propped a metal ladder against the tree and, carrying a chain saw,
climbed about 10 feet up. He started to cut the limb, expecting it to fall away
to the left. But a dead branch resting on top of the limb drove it straight down.
The limb crashed into one of the ladder's extension arms, flipping the ladder
around the tree.
Shelton felt himself falling. He glanced down and saw the four-foot-high
chain-link fence coming up rapidly. To avoid straddling it, he pulled his feet
together quickly, as he'd been taught to do as a paratrooper. His feet caught
the fence, propelling him headfirst toward the ground.
"What irony this is," he thought. "I've got 400 jumps, some from a
20,000-foot range at night, in the dead of night, with an oxygen mask
on, unable to see anything down below on the ground at the moment of
leaving the plane. And I had walked away from them all basically
unscathed."
During 38 years in the military, including two combat tours in Vietnam
and another in the Persian Gulf War, Shelton had suffered nothing
worse than a broken ankle. A towering 6-foot-5 figure accustomed to
daily four-mile jogs, he'd never spent a day in a hospital.
The full page article goes on to show how he got surgery and a rehab program and is now walking. Pretty darn lucky. This
shows, to me, that even very bright and capable people, should maybe leave tree work to the professionals.
Tom
