On January 23rd, 1967, Lt. Colonel Barry Bridger and his copilot, Dave Grey, launched a mission over Vietnam in their Phantom F-4 fighter jet in treacherous weather. It was Colonel Bridger’s 75th mission and the only one he had attempted in the daylight hours. Suddenly, his plane was split in half by a ground-to-air missile. He and Grey ejected while the plane was going 600 miles per hour and began their descent into the unknown below. When Bridger finally landed on terra firma, he found the North Vietnamese army waiting for him. They arrested him and Grey and checked them into The Hanoi Hilton: a place designed to break the spirit of all who entered. Lt. Colonel Bridger not only survived this horrific ordeal; he thrived. He says his deeply held values saved him and his fellow prisoners. Are your values compelling enough and ingrained deeply enough to sustain you through a situation in which, like Barry, you are captured by a savage enemy and subjected to years of torture? Are your values such that you can make it through the inevitable tough times we all face periodically that make it hard to continue? The Spirit to Soar is filled with valuable life lessons about how to thrive and how to use every experience to help you successfully face the next one.
