I was 10 years old when Jimmy Carter ran for President. I was ALL IN: I had Carter for President stickers on my school folders. I would get so excited when he was on TV. Everything about him said, Good Man. Trustworthy Man. He made me feel safe. He made me feel proud of being from the South.
I never stopped being a fan of Jimmy Carter. I’ve known two people who knew him, personally, and they gushed about his kindness and his intelligence – two things our country seems to no longer value.
One of my favorite stories about him is from before his presidency: on December 12, 1952, an accident with the experimental NRX reactor at Atomic Energy of Canada’s Chalk River Laboratories caused a partial meltdown, resulting in millions of liters of radioactive water flooding the reactor building’s basement. The reactor’s core was ruined. Carter, then a Naval officer, was ordered to Chalk River to lead a U.S. maintenance crew that joined other American and Canadian service personnel to assist in the shutdown of the reactor. The painstaking process required each team member to don protective gear and be lowered individually into the reactor for 90 seconds at a time, limiting their exposure to radioactivity while they disassembled the crippled reactor. When Carter was lowered in, his job was simply to turn a single screw. During and after his presidency, Carter said that his experience at Chalk River had shaped his views on atomic energy and led him to cease the development of a neutron bomb.
Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the USA, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, a US Navy submarine officer, a champion of health, peace, human rights and democracy world wide, and long-time Habitat for Humanity supporter and advocate, has died.
A great man. And despite what so many would have you believe otherwise, a great President.
We live on a better Earth because of Jimmy Carter.
We live on a lesser Earth without him.
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