I’ve gotta pee really bad. I’m sitting in the co-pilot seat of a King Air, a jet-fueled prop plane, next to Joel Garland Wade, who signs all his emails, “Semper Fi, Joel.” Marines use that slogan. It means, “Always Faithful.” We’re 26,000 feet in the air, on our way to a show in the Midwest. I had forgotten not to drink too much before the plane trip. I had just guzzled a 40 oz. Styrofoam cup full of the world’s best sweet tea from Stroud’s Barbecue on my way to the airstrip. While taxiing on the runway, someone in the band handed me a bottle of water, and I mindlessly gulped it down, too. I had forgotten that the plane doesn’t have a true bathroom, but a makeshift ‘tube’ that’s all the way in the back of the plane. I’d have to climb over all the band members to get back there. “The Walk of Shame,” Joel calls it. I can hold it. It’s only about an hour trip. What’s that on the radar? Bad weather ahead. This trip is going to drag out to about two-and-a-half hours. I can see every lightning strike within a hundred miles on a little black and red screen in front of me. I still need to pee, really bad. I’m trying to ignore my screaming bodily function signals by paying close attention to the gauges and dials in the cockpit. I learn so much on these trips. Joel’s a Marine. Most reliable person I’ve ever met. I’d fly in anything he had the confidence to fly. He’s given me flight lessons before and let me land the plane twice (although he always had it under control…but I felt cool anyway). I have bombarded him with questions time and time again, through that little microphone that swings down from the headset that pilots and co-pilots wear. Interjecting questions during the gaps in his conversations with air traffic controllers as they pass us off into the next controller’s watchful eye, as we criss-cross the country. I know what that dial means. I know why he just flipped that switch. I've beaten him to the little knob that dials us to the right frequency for communication with the next tower. We've talked "pitch" and "yaw." I’ve learned tons of facts from Joel about the sky, and the weather, and the constellations. I've watched ice form on the wings, and watched the two de-icers in operation. Joel explains that there are two de-icers instead of one because of the many built in redundancies on our plane for our safety. Couldn't feel safer. This plane is a 'workhorse' according to Joel. He’s pretty patient to tolerate my zealous fascination with everything going on in the cockpit as well as outside the cockpit windows. The King Air trips are always memorable. Especially the time I had to ‘hold it’ for a couple of hours and could barely walk once we landed. (So I wasn’t trained by the Marine Corps, big deal!) We still laugh about that. Joel has pointed out the most ominous thunderheads I’ve ever seen in my life. He’s shown me the constellations from a viewpoint I’ve never seen. I’ve fallen asleep in the warm sunset drenched cockpit, with the occasional interruption through my headset from the air traffic controller calling out our plane’s ID: “2-1-Delta-Echo.” 2+1=3. The number 3 is only significant when you know who used to own this plane. The D and E (Delta-Echo in aviation talk) are actually Dale Earnhardt’s initials. This was his plane before he died in a NASCAR racing accident. His racing number was #3. I remember flying co-pilot into Indianapolis on one of our trips. Joel hit his radio button and identified our aircraft to the tower as we approached. "This is King Air 2-1-Delta-Echo." I guess it was because this was Indianapolis (where the Indy 500 happens), but immediately the air traffic controller said, "Is that ol' Dale Earnhardt's plane?" "Yes Sir." "May he rest in peace. It's a pleasure to welcome you to Indianapolis tonight." Joel used to fly us a lot. People think it was a luxury to fly in a private plane that holds nine people, but it was actually sometimes more economical to use Joel's plane and his services than to buy eight or nine commercial airline tickets for all the band guys and personnel that fly with us. Plus we got to fly back home the same night, instead of waiting for a commercial flight in the morning. (The band's wives were really happy about that!) So Joel would fly us to the town, and then hang out with us at the venues and watch the shows from backstage. Sometimes he’d pass the time studying manuals for his next flight test. His Marine training kept us asking a lot of questions. And his insatiable appetite would keep us in stitches as he downed 3 or 4 plates full of food at catering. (One night he ate at least 3 plates of food at a benefit dinner/concert that cost about $500 per plate. That was $1,500 dollars worth of food eaten by one guy!) To me, Joel became as much a part of the band as the players. Joel inspires me. He’s been through a lot. He perseveres and keeps a tight hold on his faith. “Semper Fi” says a lot about him. He’s a Marine. He’s a skydiver. He’s a pilot. And he’s a great friend. We don’t get to fly with him anymore like we used to. But not a trip goes by when we don't bring him up, and long for the good ol' days when he was flying us. I invited Joel over this week, to take a break from an afternoon visit at his in-laws with his wife and three kids, to sit down in my living room and retell his story. I’m glad he said yes. Here’s the conversation: *********** CR: Let’s start with our connection. I don’t remember the exact time, but we met through your being a pilot, and flying my band around the country. That was an amazing era in my history as an artist. The band and I always talk about it. Every time we’re in an airport we’re saying, “Where’s Joel?” JOEL: I’m the same way, every time I’m in an airport I’m saying, “Where’s Chris?” CR: We continually want to get back to that era. It was a lot of fun and so amazing to have you as part of our team. Maybe it will happen again sometime. That was an amazing time, getting home to my own bed every night because we didn’t have to wait for a commercial flight the next day. JOEL: I tell you, it was a wonderful time. CR: You were flying a King Air. JOEL: Yeah. The first trip, I think it was a trip to Pennsylvania, we flew the King Air up. The favorite part about that time period for me was…I fly everywhere, and I get so used to seeing the beautiful sunsets and sunrises and all the constellations out at night, and you almost start to take it for granted. But a lot of times it really comes down to who you’re flying and how you’re helping them. For me, especially with you guys, to see you get on stage and do your thing, and to see people being happy and even profoundly impacted from what you guys are doing, and knowing that in some small way I was able to, at least, get you there! CR: In a big way. I always say this, and I’ve told you before, but anytime your name comes up, I tell people, to me you were as much a part of the band as the players, because we were always in it together, doing what we do. It was fruitful, and every person involved has a part in some way, carrying out what we’re on the planet to do. And the way we end up being connected and being able to work together is a really cool thing to me. JOEL: You want to plug in with whatever your gifts are, to use them to put bread on the table (in my case I have three children) and to use it directly, if possible, to help change lives. For me, that was one time in my life I can look back on and say, “I was actually helping people do their ministry.” In reality that’s what I want to do. I want to help people achieve their ministry. And that’s as close as I’ve ever gotten so far, flying you guys. I love that era. CR: I’ll never forget that we used to trade off sitting in the co-pilot seat, next to you, and I learned so much during that. I’m a nature freak anyway, about sunsets and stars and constellations, and they show up in my songs, and always in my head. I’m always aware of the outdoors. Whenever I’m driving around and I see a 65 thousand foot cloud formation, I immediately remember seeing those formations from the cockpit with you, and hearing you talk about what was going on inside of them. To me it was like school…sitting there in the cockpit and hearing you explain things. That kind of thing adds so much to my life because it keeps me inspired. JOEL: Sure. I remember the trip somewhere in the upper Midwest, maybe Minnesota, and I remember we had to divert two states to the right… CR: Like to Nebraska… JOEL: To get home. I felt like Bugs Bunny… “We should’ve taken that left at Albequerque.” CR: I think he pronounced it, “Al-ba-koy-kee.” JOEL: Yeah that’s right! I remember thinking, “I’m glad this plane has very large gas tanks,” ‘cause we were so far to the south and to the west to get around this amazing line of weather. The King Air can fly pretty high, and yet here we are flying 20 to 30 thousand feet, and the clouds are still 20 thousand feet above you. You understand really quick that you’re very small sometimes! CR: Yeah, that’s another part of the learning. I believe the more you see of nature and of the outdoors, and that vastness, you understand yourself better in a context. My little drama is not so much the big deal after all. So that was a great time for me for that reason. And watching the gauges and seeing how all that works…how interesting that was, and the way you explained all that to us when we were flying with you. I’m sure we asked way too many questions! JOEL: No, I enjoyed it. I started as a flight instructor. My dad was a teacher, my mom was a teacher, my brother was a teacher, so in a way I must have that gene somewhere. You guys were friends, so I didn’t mind taking that time, especially when we had time, to explain things. There is such a science aspect too, to flying. You have to have a firm grip on meteorology, and you gotta know your Newton’s Laws pretty well, because you’re manipulating every one of them. Ha! It’s being able to apply the learning process in how you fly…from the understanding mode, and pure learning phase, and then applying that. You gotta know why the storms are out-climbing your airplane. You might not have realized that there’s a six thousand foot [per minute] updraft in that thunderhead, and we can only climb two thousand feet a minute, so we’d better go around it, not above it. CR: Stuff you gotta know, and it’s worth studying. JOEL: I remember one time, it was a beautiful night, and I used the stars to fly. I knew that this particular constellation ought to be setting in the west, and there you go. Now obviously I had the instruments to back me up, but it was fun to look out on what pilots call a VFR night, (Visual Flight Rules) and just fly by the stars. CR: That reminds me of that movie “White Squall” where Jeff Bridges, captain of the ship, The Albatross, says in Spanish, “Un marinero necesita solamente las estrellas para navegar,” and translates himself to the kids staring at him, “A true sailor needs only the stars to navigate.” That’s how, historically, people got around the planet. Now we have all these instruments and technology to help us, and that’s great, but there’s something really enchanting about doing it the way they used to do it. JOEL: Well, that’s how the Wise Men found Jesus, right? There’s something to that! Using the stars. CR: There ya go. JOEL: I remember flying Audio A to D.C. I think, and there was that meteor shower that comes every year, what was it?... CR: The Leonid? JOEL: Yeah that’s it, and we were up cruising above the haze, and I remember looking out of the cockpit (of course I have the front seat view of everything) and seeing all the meteors, and I looked back to see if, well, “I wonder if all those guys are asleep back there?” And I turned around and looked back and half of them were stuck to this side of the airplane and other half were stuck to the other side, just glued to the windows. Instead of looking down they were looking up, going “Wow!” It was nighttime and perfect conditions. Of course we had a 20 thousand foot closer view than most people. That was a cool moment. CR: I’m always fascinated that in every flight you’re observing something from a new angle that has never happened before. The clouds, the stars, the way the sunlight is playing on something, the shapes…it’s always a new work of art that you’re right in the middle of, and staring at. I love that. JOEL: In my new job I fly jets, and now that I’ve flown over all the lower 48 states, it’s amazing how beautiful our country is, and how big it is. You cross the Mississippi and it still takes forever to get to the other side. I feel like a kid sometimes—I’m the one flying the airplane, but I’m asking, “Are we there yet? Can’t this plane go any faster?" It’s just so beautiful flying over the Grand Canyon, flying over the Crater out in Arizona. I was born in the Southeast, but you don’t see things like that everyday in the Southeast. Flying over the Pacific Northwest, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe...stuff you’ve always seen in an Ansel Adams picture, but never for yourself. And granted, I’m in the air so it’s a birds-eye view. CR: So you get another perspective that most people don’t get even when they see those things. JOEL: I take so many things away from that. The pure beauty. And you think a million years ago this used to be an ocean, and here we are walking on it. And how amazing and how huge God is, because he spoke that into being in six days. Pretty amazing. CR: Yeah. Hey, talk to me about the skydiving thing. That’s so interesting to me. I’d love details about the competitions, and the recognition you got. You can brag on yourself if you want. JOEL: Well, that was all a kind of bittersweet time in my life. I actually took a back-door approach to the sport. Most people who skydive start out by jumping out of an airplane, making a few jumps with an instructor, and eventually getting off on their own, ‘getting wing’ per se, and then several hundred or several thousand jumps with friends in the sport. Then they get into the basic competitions, and then move up to more advanced competitions. By that time they’ve got many thousands of jumps under their belt. For me, though, it was different, because I grew up in East Tennessee, and it just so happens that they have a sky-diving simulator, a wind tunnel with a DC-3 propeller in the bottom, that blows wind speeds high enough to let you feel like you’re freefalling. You can literally move your body like you’re actually freefalling. In my late teens and early twenties I was an instructor in that wind tunnel. I learned to do it well, and got many hours in there, equivalent to several thousand skydives. Before I ever made my first jump. Skydivers would come in there and tell me I should go skydiving. I would say, “Yeah, well, ok, maybe.” Eventually, finally one day, I did. It was weird. My first three jumps out of the airplane I was signed off. And for most people it takes anywhere from ten jumps to twenty jumps to get signed off. CR: And “signed off” means what? JOEL: It means you’re a licensed skydiver, able to do it on your own. You are basically free to go. Sanctioned to love and experience the sport of skydiving. CR: Got it. JOEL: Then on my fourth jump, I went down to Florida and hooked up with some good skydivers…just met up with the right people…some are no longer living…but at the time they were considered some of the best skydivers on the planet. I got to jump with a few of them. And we did, I think it was a “Double Falcon Award” or a “Falcon Award” on my fourth jump. What a Falcon is, you’ve seen the team formations? We jumped out and did formations, and I think the record at that point was like some guy who did three or maybe four formations on his twentieth jump. But on my fourth jump I did eight or nine formations. In the skydiving world at the time, before the X-Games and everything, it was a pretty big deal. I didn’t realize that because the wind tunnel was so much more advanced and so much more difficult than the real thing, literally, even though it was only my fourth jump, I was jumping like a person who had several thousand skydives. And then in my fifth through ninth jumps, and again we’re talking singular jumps here, I was just having a good time jumping. On my ninth jump, somebody said, “You know, you’re pretty good. You should send in your videotape to people that are doing that freestyle competition.” I was like, “OK, what freestyle competition?” And they said, “You know, the World Championships.” “What? Are you kiddin’ me?” “No.” “OK!” So I did that, and long story short, I made the final round. And I ended up somewhere between my twentieth and twenty-fourth jump ever, I placed 2nd, the Silver Medal, in the World Championships. And I think everyone who was competing had many, many thousands of skydives, and here I was with my twentieth or so ACTUAL skydive, competing. I’d like to say at that point I gave all the glory to God, but it kinda went to my head. If I look back, if I ever had my “fifteen minutes of fame” that was probably it, because I had skydivers at the awards ceremony who had literally, some of them had ten thousand skydives, standing to their feet giving me a standing ovation when they saw my jump on the screen, on the big screen TV. I felt pretty good. CR: I’m sure. JOEL: Well, God had a lesson or two to teach me about my pride, and the true order of things…Him being first and foremost, and skydiving being somewhere second, third, fourth or way down the list. I did two more competitions, and I did ok. At the time I was a Marine, and a little war happened during that era, the first Gulf War, and that pulled me away from skydiving for a little while. I came back and competed after the Gulf War, after my stint there, which is a whole ‘nother story. When I came back, I was a little more brazen. I had just been through a war, and literally for lack of a better term, I felt bullet-proof. I guess at the time I was a senior in college. All I had to do was graduate and I was pretty much assured of a flight slot in the Marine Corps. I was pretty much on paper what one would call a great Marine, in perfect physical fitness, a great shot, and expert rifleman and in marksmanship. At the time I’d been in the Marine Corps five or six year. Well at the ’92 World [Skydiving] Championships in Phoenix, Arizona, I was showing off, and did this little move called a “hook turn." Basically what you’re supposed to do in that maneuver is to pull-out at the last second, and turn all that vertical velocity into horizontal velocity, and skim the ground really fast, like turf-surfing. It’s great…unless you don’t pull-out in time. And I didn’t pull-out in time. I hit the ground at about 60 miles per hour and bounced a pretty good ways. Some guy said 40 feet or 42 feet, kind of at a horizontal angle. Ended up, I banged up a lot of stuff. Nothing like a helicopter ride to the hospital to teach you a lesson in humility. Anything I can pull away from that story is this: no matter how good you get, no matter how invincible you think you are, you have to remember the perfect order of things, that God is first. If I had been a little bit wiser, I’d probably still be enjoying skydiving today. Well I still have my parachute and I still jump on occasion. It’s been a while, but I could have saved myself at least a little bit of physical pain. There was rehabilitation, a few surgeries as a result of my skydiving experience. CR: You broke a lot of stuff. JOEL: Yeah, two knees, blew out both knees, broke my tail bone, broke my pelvis in six places, my tibia, separated my shoulder, knocked out a tooth, it was not a fun thing. CR: But now you’re in great shape. JOEL: Yeah! CR: Preparing for, what, a triathlon? JOEL: Actually a marathon. I’m doing back-to-back marathons. One in March and one in April. For really great runners, which I’m not, that’s probably not that great of a feat. But for someone who’s got five screws in his knees…it’s a totally different story. I guess I’m in above average shape, thanks be to God, because in my skydiving accidents, and me being hard on my body (like any good ‘ol American male or great Marine), all my breaks were clean, I had a great surgeon repair my knees, went through physical therapy, and everything came back the way it should have, thank goodness. And here I am running 20, 30, 40 miles a week. It has a lot to do with God. I could easily still be in that wheelchair I was in after my accident. CR: There’s a phrase I always hear you say, which I love, and I can see why you say it so much: “Adapt and overcome!” JOEL: Yeah. CR: Any time an issue comes up, I hear you say that, and you’ve done that in small ways and in huge ways, and that’s a perfect example of how you take…this is what I have right now, so how do I overcome? JOEL: That’s right. CR: Overcoming can be hard work, and it also has a lot to do with the people around you. Which leads me to this: in your rehabilitation time after your accident, you found your wife. JOEL: Well, as chance would have it, I was a little more thick-headed than most people would think. There’s that old saying my Dad would say (he was raised on a farm) and I’ve heard other people say it too, “When a horse bucks you off, get right back up on it.” Well after my skydiving accident, it bucked me off, and I decided to get right back on. It was probably six months after that first accident, believe it or not, I tried the same thing again. I was preparing for the collegiate championships. And had a second accident. It was really the summation of the two accidents together that brought all the misery, in the full spectrum. The second accident was, should we say, the final straw, that literally broke MY back. That ended up with me being in the wheelchair and on crutches. I had tried to adapt and overcome in Joel’s way. Without God. Just trying to be the tough Marine. And being the tough Marine only gets you so far. God, I think, had to show me that it was only with Him that I was going to get through this barrier. The wonderful way he did that was making Joel realize I’m not ten foot tall and bulletproof. That it’s only through His grace that my heart even beats and that I’m even able to enjoy the air that I breathe. But also that while I’m experiencing terrible pain, that something wonderful could come from that. It ended up that while I was in the wheelchair, the girl who was pushing me around in the wheelchair all the time, so I could get to class on time was a very close friend, who ended up being my wife. I realized she was more than just a close friend or a girlfriend. This girl is amazingly loyal, she’s strong, she doesn’t mind being late herself to class because she was getting ME to class. To make sure I could pass, ‘cause I’d already missed quite a bit because of all the medical stuff. So, with her, I knew I had a winner. I knew God had a plan and a purpose in all this, number one to teach me a lesson or two, and number two, to bring me and Rachel together. I think that was the one thing that helped strengthen our relationship to the point where we were committed enough to marry, and now we have a wonderful family, three children. CR: Unbelievable. JOEL: Yeah, I tell you, if Joel Wade were to go meet God tomorrow, now that I’ve bounced my kids on my knees, I’d be all right. CR: You often talk about using what you have to help people. I love hearing that from anybody. And you’ve mentioned your “Flying Cross Foundation.” All the things you’ve experienced, all this rich life you’ve had, some painful, some glorious, all of this has added together to make you who you are, Joel Wade, today. And you have a dream in your heart that is to do something that helps people, called, the “Flying Cross Foundation.” Tell us about that. JOEL: Sure. I think everybody has an innate skill set in their lives, and from a Christian aspect, I think it’s safe to say that you want to use your skills and abilities for something other than yourself. Something greater than yourself. For me it would be for the Kingdom of God, ultimately. One day someone called me to see if I could fly a King Air. Well, that’s what I was flying at the time. Then he asked me to fly his plane that day, which happened to be in the building I was driving by at the moment. He told me of a little boy in Greenville, TN, who needed to be picked up. The guy wanted me to fly his airplane over to pick up the little boy and fly him to Vanderbilt [University Medical Center], because he’d been diagnosed with a brain tumor. I was at the plane within a few seconds, and flew it over to Greenville. The gentleman and some people from his church escorted the little boy to the airport in Greenville, and I got the joy of being able to help this little boy out. He wasn’t in any condition to drive the hours to Vanderbilt. I got to give him an airplane ride which he’d never had before. I remember looking back at him, at night, in the plane. He was looking out at the city lights and the stars, totally glued to the window. No matter what came of the situation in the end, the airplane ride he had over there was such a joy to him. I remember thinking, “This is what I want to do. I want to be able to help kids, and people and organizations.” There are other entities out there that fly people, and I wanted to be able to do that from a Christian aspect. To be able to fly kids or individuals who need help, or reinforce other organizations that might need the use of an airplane. I would love to help them and in the meantime be salt and light, to let these people know that they are loved. Psalm 36 says that “children of men, both high and low, are sheltered under God’s wings.” Yes, it’s a play on words, but every airplane is God’s plane, because He created Newton’s Laws. We just happen to manipulate them. So the idea is for me to be able to utilize an organization that I hope one day will be international, to help people. Even to get missionaries home within an hour or two if they need. I don’t think the whole Church realizes the impact we could have if we’d circle the wagons. So whether Catholics or Methodists or Baptists, I hope the Flying Cross Foundation can bring people together, like pilots, and M.D.s and EMT’s, whoever, to meet needs. I’d love to be the vehicle. CR: So you envision this organization that brings all these entities together: planes, pilots, medical people, where you have in place, ready for any need that comes up, a team that is willing to jump in. JOEL: Exactly. Hopefully this will all be from a voluntary aspect, and have a database full of people from every state, maybe broken down to towns, and even down to churches within a town, if we can grow it fast enough. Literally, instead of flight attendants, we’d have flight counselors, who would not only serve you a cup of coffee, but sit down with you and pray with you, escort you to a hospital, or wherever you need to go. I want it to be for more than just aviators. Not just for the bold. Maybe even for a grandma who sews quilts—if she wants her quilt on an airplane to keep someone warm, there you go. God is so much bigger than Joel Wade. I’m a creature that gets to enjoy God’s mercy and grace. God has blessed me to know how to fall out of an airplane pretty good, and I know how to fly ‘em pretty good. I know that somewhere, somehow I can touch people with that. It’s just a matter of bringing it all together, and making the Flying Cross Foundation a reality, and seeing how many people we can bless, how much salt and light we can spread in a dark world. That’s the key, man. CR: I love hearing your perspective, and how well you explain that. Not everyone who reads this interview is going to believe everything the same about God. Maybe they’ve seen so many misrepresentations of what being connected to God is. So to hear you say it this way is so refreshing: “I’ve been blessed, and here’s how I feel like I can use what I’ve been given to make the world better, to help humanity. It may reach people who believe what I do, or people of other faiths, but I want to not only help them, but in the process point them to what I know.” I don't think many people express it so well. JOEL: I’m so thankful. I want to use whatever skill set He’s given me, and if that means a stick, and a rudder, and a little jet-A [fuel], then that’s what I’m gonna use. Even if it means someday standing on the side of the interstate with a sign that says, “Will fly for food.” (laughs) I will do that to get the Flying Cross going. CR: Every one of us has something like that. A dream or a desire. Thanks, Joel, for speaking about yours. It’s always inspiring to hear someone else’s passion and dream. I don’t jump out of planes, and I could never do enough push-ups to be a Marine, but your story inspires me to use well what I’ve been given. Hey, remember that time I had to pee really bad? ********** Joel Wade's INVERTED HELICOPTER SPIN in the wind tunnel: