In one of my assignments as a young infantry officer, I was sent to the 48th Infantry near Frankfurt, Germany. In those days our prize weapon was a huge 280-mm atomic cannon. Guarded by infantry platoons, these guns were hauled around the forests on trucks to keep the Soviets from guessing their location.
        One day Captain Tom Miller assigned my platoon to guard a 280. I alerted my men, loaded my .45 caliber pistol and jumped into my jeep. I had not gone far when I realized that my .45 was gone.
        I was petrified. In the army, losing a weapon is 
   serious business. I had no choice but to radio Captain Miller and tell him. "You what?" he said in disbelief. He paused a few seconds, then added, "All right, continue the mission."
        When I returned, uneasily contemplating my fate, Miller called me over. "I've got something for you," he said, handing me the pistol. "Some kids in the village found it where it fell out of your holster."
        "Kids found it?" I felt a cold chill.
        "Yeah," he said. "Luckily they only got off one round before we heard the shot and took the gun away." The disastrous possibilities left me limp. "For God's sake, son, don't let that happen again."
        He drove off. I checked the magazine and found it was full. The gun had not been fired. Later I learned that I had dropped it in my tent before I ever got started. Miller had fabricated the scene about the kids to give me a good scare. Today the army might hold an investigation, call in lawyers and likely enter a bad mark on my record. Miller gave me the chance to learn from my mistake. His example of intelligent leadership was not lost on me. Nobody ever got to the top without slipping up. When someone stumbles, I don't believe in stomping on him. My philosophy is "Pick 'em 
   up, dust 'em off and get 'em moving again."

        My father’s skin was jaundiced as he lay hooked up to monitors and intravenous tubes in the intensive care unit of the hospital. Normally a well-built man, he had lost more than 30 pounds.
        My father’s illness had been diagnosed as cancer of the pancreas, one of the most malignant forms of the disease. The doctors were doing what they could but told us that he had only three to six months to live. Cancer of the pancreas does not lend itself to radiation therapy or chemotherapy, so they could offer little hope.
        A few days later, when my father was sitting up in bed, I approached him and said, “Dad, I feel deeply for what’s happened to you. It’s helped me to look at the ways I’ve kept my distance and to feel how much I really love you.” I leaned over to give him a hug, but his shoulders and arms became tense.
        “C’mon, Dad, I really want to give you a hug.”
        For a moment he looked shocked. Showing affection was not our usual way of relating. I asked him to sit up some more so I could get my arms around him. Then I tried again. This time, however, he was even more tense. I could feel the old resentment starting to build up, and I began to think “I don’t need this. If  you want to die and leave me with the same coldness as always, go right ahead.”
        For years I had used every instance of my father’s 
   resistance and rigidness to blame him, to resent him and to say to myself, “See, he doesn’t care.” This time, however, I thought again and realized the hug was for my benefit as well as my father’s. I wanted to express how much I cared for him no matter how hard it was for him to let me in. My father had always been very Germanic and duty-oriented; in his childhood, his parents must have taught him how to shut off his feelings in order to be 
   a man. Letting go of my long-held desire to blame him for our distance, I was actually looking forward to the challenge of giving him more love. I said, “C’mon, Dad, put your arms around me.”
        I leaned up close to him at the edge of the bed with his arms around me. “Now squeeze. That’s it. Now again, squeeze. Very good!”
        In a sense I was showing my father how to hug, and as he squeezed, something happened. For an instant, a feeling of “I love you” bubbled through. For years our greeting had been a cold nd formal handshake that said, “Hello, how are you?” Now, both he and I waited for that momentary closeness to happen again. 
   Yet, just at the moment when he would begin to enjoy the feelings of love, something would tighten in his upper torso and our hug would become awkward and strange. It took months before his rigidness gave way and he was able to let the emotions inside him pass through his arms to encircle me. It was up to me to be the source of many hugs before my father initiated a hug on his own. I was not blaming him, but supporting him; after all, he was changing the habits of an entire lifetime - and that takes time. I knew we were succeeding because more and more we were relating out of care and affection. Around the two-hundredth hug, he spontaneously said out loud, for 
   the first time I could ever recall, “I love you.”

        I do a lot of management training each year for the 
   Circle K Corporation, a national chain of convenience 
   stores. Among the topics we address in our seminars is the 
   retention of quality employees - a real challenge to 
   managers when you consider the pay scale in the service 
   industry. During these discussions, I ask the participants, 
   "What has caused you to stay long enough to become a 
   manager?" Some time back a new manager took the question  and slowly, with her voice almost breaking, said, "It was a 
   $19 baseball glove." 
        Cynthia told the group that she originally took a 
   Circle K clerk job as an interim position while she looked 
   for something better. On her second or third day behind the 
   counter, she received a phone call from her nine-year old 
   son, Jessie. He needed a baseball glove for Little League. 
   She explained that as a single mother, money was very tight, 
   and her first check would have to go for paying bills. 
   Perhaps she could buy his baseball glove with her second or third check. 
        When Cynthia arrived for work the next morning, 
   Patricia, the store manager, asked her to come to the small 
   room in back of the store that served as an office. Cynthia 
   wondered if she had done something wrong or left some part of her job incomplete from the day before. She was concerned and confused. 
        Patricia handed her a box. "I overheard you talking to 
   your son yesterday," she said, "and I know that it is hard 
   to explain things to kids. This is a baseball glove for 
   Jessie because he may not understand how important he is, 
   even though you have to pay bills before you can buy gloves. You know we can't pay good people like you as much as we 
   would like to; but we do care, and I want you to know you 
   are important to us." 
        The thoughtfulness, empathy and love of this 
   convenience store manager demonstrates vividly that people remember more how much an employer cares than how much the employer pays. An important lesson for the price of a Little League baseball glove.