HE NEVER LET HIS CAPTORS SEE HIM CRY

More about my hero friend Lt. Col. Paul Kari.

Paul was determined to never let his torturers see him cry. But, he told me, he cried a lot when he got back alone in his cell.

Yet, I have seen him cry twice.

Once was when he told me about his first days in captivity. When he ejected from his burning jet it broke his back. He was made to sit for days on a jagged pile of concrete blocks.

When they put him in a cell with others his body was violently ill from pain and bad water and he used it. When the captors saw the bucket they demanded to know who used it. Before Paul could answer one of the other prisoners said, “I did.”

Paul wept as he told me how that man was tortured in front of him.

The other time I saw him weep was when he was telling me how good God had been to him bringing him through the captivity and blessing him in his life after prison.

The goodness of a fellow prisoner and the mercy of God drew his tears.

Measure a man by what it takes to make him cry.