A Man With the Right Stuff

   Note: This is a story that was previously published in The Baptist Standard and now rewritten for my blog. The Standard went out to thousands of Churches across the U.S. so if it seems familiar to some of you, that's why.

     A hero can best be described as an "ordinary person put into extraordinary circumstances, who rises to the occasion".  Because we spent twenty one of our forty year marriage in the U.S. Air Force, my ordinary husband was presented with some very extraordinary opportunities to be heroic.

Laura and Ted Gehrke - 1970

     We had been married less than a year and were stationed in Victoria, Texas when I realized that Ted Gehrke was made of the right stuff.  He was an Airman First Class then and we were very poor, but he was able to make up for our lack of income by securing a part time position off base. He got off work at the base then went directly to a gas station, where he worked until midnight.  Then he got up the next morning at six o'clock to repeat the cycle.
     Ted worked two, sometimes three, jobs for the first ten years of our marriage.  The  first Christmas after we married he worked seventy-two hours straight at the gas station so he could buy me a Christmas gift.  I knew right then that he was hero material.
     But these are things one might expect of a good husband and provider.  It wasn't until we were sent to Key West, Florida that an incident happened that showed his courage.  We had two small children by then, with another on the way and it had become even harder to make ends meet.  Ted soon went to work at another gas station in Key West.
     It rained every afternoon in Key West.  Sometimes the storms rolled in off the ocean with howling winds and pouring rain.  The sky would be so dark that the street lights came on in the afternoon.  On one such day while I was home with napping children and Ted was at the gas station the phone rang.  The voice on the line said, "Hello, Mrs. Gehrke?"
     I answered, "Yes." and he continued, "I'm a reporter for the Miami Herald and I wonder if I could get a statement from you regarding your husband's act of heroism?"
     I gasped, "What!  What has he done?"
     The reporter proceeded to tell me the story.  It seems a loaded gasoline truck had turned over on the rain slick street in front of the gas station where Ted worked, spilling its contents onto the highway.  The crash had taken out an electric pole and live wires were lying across the street.  The driver lay unconscious, overcome by gasoline fumes and pinned inside the cab.  Ted rushed out into the street, wading ankle deep in gasoline, pulled the man from the truck and carried him to safety.
     After the reporter finished his story I experienced a jumble of emotions...fear, anger, pride and gratitude to God for the safety He had granted.  For this act Ted was given the keys to the city of Key West from the mayor and awarded the Airman's medal, the Air Force's highest peace time award. 
     Shortly before the end of the Viet Nam War, we were sent to Spain.  During that time many of us wore bracelets for the P.O.W.'s and M.I.A.'s in Viet Nam.  The war ended while were there and it was only then that I learned that Ted had volunteered to exchange himself for a P.O.W.  I was astonished and upset when I heard it.  When I asked him why in the world he would do such a thing, his answer was,  "I've been memorizing scripture for several years now and I think I could make it through it.  Many of these guys die while they are there, not from their injuries but from giving up."  We heard from his commander that he had looked into the matter when Ted volunteered for the exchange and was told by the "higher ups" that there were high level talks going on that would end the war, so they wouldn't consider it at that time.
      But that wasn't the end of his valor.  Also while we were in Spain, he received the Air Force Commendation Medal.  His quick action in the control tower saved the life of a pilot who had crashed into a mountain.  Ted was in the tower when he heard something in the pilot's voice that "didn't sound right", so he hit the crash phone that scrambled the rescue choppers so fast that they were able to pick the injured pilot up within fifteen minutes after he crashed. This quick action saved his life. Ted had actually scrambled the choppers before the plane hit the mountain. As a side note, the night before we left Zaragosa Air Force Base to return to the states, Ted had to go to the NCO club as part of his checking out of the base. While sitting in the office, filling out paper work, a young officer walked in and looked at him.  Ted stood to greet him and the man asked, "Are you Sgt. Gehrke?" 
     "Yes," answered Ted.
     "I've come to shake your hand because you saved my life.  I was the pilot who went down in that plane last year."
     Now all of these things were heroic, but in my estimation the best years of Ted's life came when he retired from the Air Force and became a pastor of a small rural church.  For twenty-one years he faithfully ministered to people.  He taught them the Bible, counseled with them, married them, welcomed their babies into the world, watched by their sick beds and prayed for them and many times buried them or their loved ones.  This faithfulness and devotion to his calling, was to me what showed his true grit.  The bible says that men are also valiant when they are willing to simply stand by the stuff!  This hero died in 1996 of a sudden heart attack...with his running shoes on!  Had he lived, we would have been married for fifty seven years on April 7.

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