source ; imgurcool story to get in the holiday mood and to warm your heart
This is Col. Harry Shoup, commander of the Continental Air Defense Command, and he is the definition of an awesome guy.
He's responsible for NORAD Tracks Santa.
Background real quick. NORAD is the North American Aerospace Defense Command, and they're responsible for the defense of all of North America from Maritime and Aerospace attacks. But they also track Santa Claus for the little tykes of the world.
Back in 1955, they were called the Continental Air Defense Command, and this guy was in charge. He had a red phone that only he, and a 4 star general at the Pentagon had the number for. If those damn commies were gonna attack, he was the first one to know because of that red phone.
Well, one day. A newspaper in Colorado Springs ran this Sears ad, telling kids to call the fat red guy himself. But there was a problem.
They mistyped the phone number. Guess where that phone number went instead?
You got it. Col. Shoup's red phone.
This guy is chilling at his desk one day in December of 1955 when his red phone rings. I mean, I'd probably have been freaking out a bit. This is the height of the Cold War. Who knows what he's gonna be told? So, like to Colonel he is, he answers it calmly and composed. Then this little girl answers him asking "Is this Santa Clause?"
The Colonel is confused as hell. Like. What? Is this some Soviet pinko trick? Like, come on. Santa may wear a red suit, but he's a good Christian, not some commie. He was taken aback.
Naturally, he was pissed and thought it a joke. But when the kid started to cry, he realized it was no joke. So he quickly became Santa Claus. He HoHoHo'd, asked if she's been good this year, and cheered her up. Everyone in the room with him must have been confused AF.
So when he was done talking to the girl, he asked to speak to her mom. And he demanded to know what was going on. She just said "Have you not seen the Sears Ad? It's all over the paper."
So instead of freaking out, he just set a couple soldiers to work the phones and pretend to be Santa.
There was also a big glass board in the office, that was used to track airplanes coming into the US and Canada. On Christmas Eve, he came into the office and saw someone had drawn Santa and his reindeer coming in over Canada from the North Pole. He stood there a looked at it. When a soldier asked nervously if he wanted it erased, he just stood there considering it. Then instead of freaking out, he went picked up a phone and called the radio station saying "This is the commander at the Combat Alert Center, and we have an unidentified flying object. Why, it looks like a sleigh."
So the radio stations in town called him about every hour asking where Santa was. And it took off from there.
After that, he received letters from all over the world thanking him. And when he was old and gray (in his 90s), he apparently carried them all in a briefcase labeled "Top Secret"
TL;DR: Good guy Colonel saves Christmas for a little girl, starts huge tradition.
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