WEBVTT

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(upbeat music)

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(speaks in foreign language)

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I am chaplain Mark A Johnston,

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the 38 88 brigade chaplain coming

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to you once again from Japan.

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And we're here today, in Hatoyama,

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outside of Zama, Japan that's rhymes,

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that's how we remembered it.

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And continuing with a series
of resiliency we talked,

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that we've been talking
about different things,

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that help build our resiliency as soldiers

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and as individuals.

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And today I want to talk a little bit

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about overcoming adversity.

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There you're going to find that
the two boys in this story,

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the adversity they brought
home on themselves,

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but they still manage to overcome it.

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When I was a kid growing up in
a little town of off Alabama,

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my neighbors across the street
fortunately had a camper.

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And when they would go camping down

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at St Andrews State Park in
Panama City Beach Florida,

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fortunately for me, they
would always invite me along.

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And my best friend and I,
we were pretty adventurous

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at little 11 and 12 year olds.

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And we had a snuck off.

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We'd walk down the beach
probably to look at girls,

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but we got distracted by a fireworks stand

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we couldn't buy M-80s
or Cherry Bombs 'cause

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we were too young, but we
were able to buy a six pack

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of these smoke bomb hand grenades.

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Now more comes from this
than you might think,

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we'd carried them back.

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And we were trying to decide

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what we're going to do with them,

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and while we're standing there waiting

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these three guys on motorcycles
came up through the park,

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on their Harleys with the loud exhaust.

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And they came over and parked
at one of the bath houses

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where they're going to take a bath.

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Well, we had this idea I
don't know where it came from,

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but we had this idea.

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We just waited until they got inside

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and we climbed up on top.

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So we'd gotten them on the
flat roof and I would light

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one of these grenades
and give it to my friend,

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and he would throw them in on the windows

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that were like this.

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And it would hit the window

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and he'd roll right into the bath house.

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And the smoke just was
bawling out of there.

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And we thought, well, they won't come out,

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but we didn't know about these guys.

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And all of a sudden they
said, "let's get them."

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They came running out,
naked, out of the bath house,

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we jumped off the roof,
fortunately there was sand

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on the ground and we
took off running as fast

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as we could with these three
naked guys running after us,

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to going to kill us.

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Well by this time, smoke is
bowling out of this building.

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So everybody in the campground thinks that

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the building's on fire.

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So they come and they hear
shouting and screaming.

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They come out, here come
these two boys running

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for their lives down
the middle of the street

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with these three naked men chasing them.

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Well, we had had previous experience

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with something called sand spurs.

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Now I don't know if
you've ever been around

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sand spurs before but when
they get in your bare feet,

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they really hurt.

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So we took a little detour
through the sand spur patch

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and they followed us.

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Much to their chagrin
they followed us 'cause

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so by this time the whole
campground is out there.

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And there's three men jumping up and down

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on one foot trying to get the
sand spurs out of the bottoms

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of their feet, shouting at us
that they're going to kill us.

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And we got away.

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Now that story I've told you
that story for several reasons.

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First of all, I hope you
were entertained by it.

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First of all, no police were called,

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the fire trucks weren't called.

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We didn't get in trouble.

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And we heard these guys laughing about it.

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As they walked back to their
bikes to finish their shower.

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It's a story I tell because
I find it to be entertaining.

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And I bet for that three
minutes, and I told that story.

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You didn't think about
the state of the world.

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You didn't think about politics.

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You didn't think about anything else

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except that story.

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Stories have great power.

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And here's the thing.

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That story came from my
life when I was a kid.

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And I had lots of other
stories as you've heard.

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You have a story to tell.

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Find a way to tell it.

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Find a way to pass on your life

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and your stories to your
children and your grandchildren,

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whoever else it may be.

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I hope your story is
probably a little less

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criminal than that one, but
whatever your story may be,

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it made you who you are.

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(speaks in foreign language)

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Have a great day.

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(whooshing sound)