Tribute to John Gerald
Unverzagt
We lost another good man from the
glory days of Delta Air Lines last Sunday, November 12, 2023.
John
Gerald Unverzagt was 83 years old, and he was a special friend of mine. I was a
four stripe second officer on the DC-8 (I had checked out on the
CV-440 the month before, and it was my last month “riding side saddle.”), and I
was on a turnaround, MSY-LAX. Zot met us in LAX operations, and said he had a
class date with Delta, but he written them, with questions, and Delta hadn’t
answered. He said he had been offered a job with Continental, and he had to
give his answer that day, and since Delta hadn’t answered his letter, he
wondered if he really had a job. We assured he did, and that was the beginning
of a 58 year relationship.
We had a
lot in common. We both were a little on the wild side (notice, I just said a
little), and we both came to Christ in midlife. I was a charter member of
Church of the Apostles (COTA), and John became a member later. Michael Youssef
is the pastor, and he has a worldwide wide ministry called Leading The Way
(LTW), and John and his wife Kathy, were volunteer workers for years. No job
was too little for them. He once told me that he had spent hours
stuffing envelopes, that day. It’s called a servant’s heart.
It’s
appropriate that John has gone his permanent home, where is no more
Parkinson’s, cancer, broken hips, etc. I will be joining him soon….and I am
looking forward to it. It’s also appropriate that Michael has been preaching a
seven part series on Heaven. (It was interrupted by Crusade in Cairo, Egypt. I
saw it on livestream. It was outdoors, and there was over 17,000 attendees, and
almost 8,000 decisions for Christ.) The seventh sermon on Heaven is tomorrow,
at 10:30 EST - apostles.org
Most of us
didn’t realize it was the glory days, but looking back, the 10 years between
1963 and the Arab oil embargo in 1973 were the best times to be an airline
pilot.
We will
miss John, but we will see him again!
Gene Hall gene@wehall.com
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