ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS

Korean Air Lines flight KE007 was shot down by Soviet fighter-jets on September 1, 1983. On that fateful night, 240 unsuspecting passengers and crew members were shot down like an innocent sparrow in flight. The trigger-man for the Soviet Union was Major Osipovich, a pilot who wasn’t originally scheduled to be in the air during this international travesty.

The Major was slated to give a talk about peace at his daughter’s school so he volunteered for night duty to free up enough time to speak during school hours. This adjustment in flight time put him in the position of patrolling the eastern skies when that Korean passenger-jet strayed into Soviet air space. In the end, Major Osipovich followed orders and shot down the commercial airliner. How tragic that 240 lives were lost, and world powers were pushed dangerously close to catastrophic results because military missiles were fired at a civilian airplane by a pilot who was preparing to teach children about peace. Character can only be supported by actions, not merely words.