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Lieutenant Michael J. Duncan, USN and Carol Duncan,
Circa 1982
On May 2, 2011 Michael J. Duncan was appointed President & CEO of Chester County Hospital. As we celebrate his tenth anniversary of leadership this spring, we would like to provide a perspective of the man we fondly know as Mike. The following piece was authored by Mike Duncan and shared internally with his hospital team on Friday, February 19, 2021.
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"Before my wife and I started having children, I was a submarine officer. It was the height of the Cold War, so I was away from home ten months out of the year. When Carol was four months pregnant, we got the word we were going to sea and, as usual, the duration of our deployment was a secret. Five months later (do the math...) we were finally returning to home port. With logic which only made sense to the Navy, it was common practice to withhold news of family events from us, so I did not know if Carol had already delivered or not. I’d had many long deployments, but had never yearned to get back home so badly before.
Our submarine surfaced off the coastline of Connecticut and began to make our way toward the inlet to the Thames River. As we approached, a heavy fog settled on us and visibility was drastically reduced. The Officer on the periscope announced that he was unable to see the lighthouse which marked the path of our safe return. After several attempts, the Captain announced that it looked like we would need to go back out to sea and try again the next day. I spoke up and asked if I might give it a try. Peering through the periscope, straining for several minutes, I announced "bearing mark"! I saw what others did not see because I wanted to see it more badly than they.
With navigational aids now available, we made our way up the river and I stayed on the periscope ostensibly to mark the bearings to different navigational aids, but my real motivation was to focus on the pier to see if I could see a beautiful Swedish girl who looked like she was 9 months pregnant. She was there. She was clearly pregnant. She was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. The next day she delivered our first child.
Well, the fog has certainly set in on us. The fog of cold and snow and ice. The fog of COVID. The fog of a community anxiously waiting for a supply of the vaccine. The fog of separation from people we love. The fog of missing many of the normal joys of life.
Please join me in intently looking through the fog to seeing our bright future. If you work at it, you can see yourself in a room full of family and friends. You can see a community with everyone you love and anyone else loves having been vaccinated – and safe. You can see yourself walking the sidewalk in downtown West Chester on the way to your favorite restaurant. Perhaps you can see yourself at church or the symphony or the Eagles or the Phillies. It is coming. I can see it, can you?"