A veteran’s service

American hero Eddie Rickenbacker (1890-1973) led a life of daring and risk, from racing cars as a teen to piloting warplanes. Throughout his experiences, Rickenbacker grew in faith while discovering that “life had no meaning except in terms of helping others.”

In the first issue of Guideposts magazine, Rickenbacker described spending four agonizing months of 1941 in the hospital after an accident. While recovering, he pondered life and death, concluding that he couldn’t give up because he still “had work to do, others to serve.”

Less than two years later, that ordeal came in handy. After crashing in the South Pacific, Rickenbacker and “seven other starving men” were adrift on a raft for 21 days. Most were “so young they needed the strength and understanding of a man who had been down in the valley of the shadow, who had suffered and made sense out of his suffering,” he said. “It was clear to me that God had a purpose in keeping me alive. ... I had been saved to serve.”

—The Newsletter Newsletter