On the recordOctober 8, 2015
last month, Illinois--and America--lost a legend. Pat Johns passed away at the age of 66. Pat Johns was from my home State of Illinois. He was born in Aurora and raised in Plano. Known as the ``Master of Disaster,'' Pat was employed with Catholic Relief Services, based in Baltimore, for 30 years. In that time he was on the ground in some of the world's most dangerous war zones and humanitarian emergency areas. Pat Johns was a soldier, but not in the traditional sense--he didn't even carry a gun. He was a soldier of peace, armed only with the virtue of his mission. And his mission took him to places like the killing fields of Cambodia, the Ethiopian famine, the Rwandan genocide, Somalia, Kosovo, and Eritrea. And when natural disasters occurred like the Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, or the earthquake in Haiti, Pat Johns was there--with energy, hope, and solutions. In 1974, Pat joined Catholic Relief Services and was posted in Cambodia. Two years later, he was managing a staff of 400 people. To say that Pat faced a challenge in Cambodia would be a gross understatement. The Khmer Rouge Army was storming its way toward the capitol of Phnom Penh and the Vietnam war was raging next door. Pat's job included working shifts of 50 hours or more and getting food and supplies to nearly 2 million refugees seeking safe haven from the Khmer Rouge's advances. He endured miserable tropical weather and survived malaria, all while keeping tens of thousands of refugees alive.…
