Carlson, Team Hill: Pray together. Stay together

  • Published
  • By Lee Anne Hensley
  • Hilltop Times staff
HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah --  Team Hill observed the 2009 National Prayer Breakfast the morning of Feb. 19 along with distinguished guest speakers, Gen. (retired) Bruce Carlson, former commander of the Air Force Materiel Command, and his wife, Vickie.

Maj. Gen. Kathleen Close, Ogden Air Logistics Center commander, hosted the event along with the 75th Air Base Wing Base Chapel team.

The first National Prayer Breakfast was established by members of Congress and President Dwight Eisenhower in 1953, as "prayer and faith are an inseparable part of our national heritage," Chaplain (Capt.) Alex Jack, 75th ABW unit chaplain, informed the guests at last week's event.

"This year, we want to hone our focus in on what makes our mission so great," Jack added. "It's families, in all their many forms. It is the nuclear family, the Air Force extended family, the family back home, just to name a few."

In keeping with the family focus, this year's prayer breakfast theme was "Pray together. Stay together." It was taken from the expression, "the family that prays together stays together," and the chaplain encouraged all Air Force families to incorporate prayer in their time together.

In her speech to the audience, Vickie Carlson attested to how family prayer helped them overcome a crisis in Bruce's flying career. At a time when the retired general flew the OV-10 Bronco, Vickie felt compelled one night to pray for her husband, who was out on a mission, with one of her young sons. Unbeknownst to her at this time, her husband was fighting an engine fire mid-air in his OV-10 and praying for his own safety as he made an emergency landing.

"(Prayer) saved our family during that crisis," Vickie stated.

Bruce also noted that in these "uncertain times ... there are things, great things, we can do for our future. The first thing we can do is pray."

Prayer, he says, can unite families and allows any individual direct access to a higher being that can empower the individual during a crisis. Bruce compared this direct access to the communication hurdles he faced during his 37 years in the Air Force, where he "never had direct access to the Chief of Staff," until his last assignment as an AFMC commander.

"Prayer is a marvelous tool that allows us to go directly to the head of the line," he said. "It is a great privilege and an honor for us to have direct communication with our loving heavenly father."

Bruce also noted that fear should not be the only motivation to pray, but it should be used for expressing gratitude as well. "I find that the more we have to be thankful for, the more things we express gratitude for come into our lives."

In her closing remarks, Gen. Close presented Team Hill a challenge based on Vickie's personal challenge she made to herself years ago, where Vickie promised to say a prayer each time she heard a telephone ring.

"I am going to challenge everyone, for the next three days or for the rest of the week, each time you hear a cell phone go off or someone's Blackberry vibrates, if you stop and take a moment to reflect and pray in whatever way is important to you," the general said.