A Tennessee woman was experiencing major car trouble when a good Samaritan at a gas station
stepped in to help her with a jump-start.
Belinda Drew was driving her daughter's Buick to work on Sunday morning at the Westgate
Smoky Mountain Resort in Gatlinburg when she decided to stop for gas.
The station was near the Smoky Mountains.
She turned off the car and got her gas, but when she tried to start it up again, the car
would not oblige.
Drew saw two men standing outside the gas station and asked them for help and some jumper
cables.
That's scary all by itself these days, but this time it had a happy ending.
What Belinda didn't know was that she was asking U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan
Zinke and U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander for help.
Two really terrific guys.
They just happened to be in the area to promote The National Park Restoration Act.
The two men pulled their SUV up next to her broken down Buick and got under the hood to
hook up the cables.
Drew told the local paper, "The car started right up."
I'm sure they let it run for a few minutes to charge before removing the cables as well.
"I'm taking pictures of the hood of my car up because my boss won't believe me
saying my car is broken down because I already have a car in the shop … I want to show
him I'm getting work done on my car," she said.
According to Knox News:
"The gas tank on her daughter's Buick is on the opposite side of the car she's
used to driving, but by the time she realized it, the Buick was off, keys out of the ignition.
When she got back in the car to turn it around, it wouldn't start.
"I said, 'Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.'
It was just d**d," she recounted Monday.
It was then that Drew noticed two men standing outside of a Chevrolet Suburban parked with
the rear facing the Pilot store.
It had a U.S. government license plate, but Drew didn't think twice of it.
She asked the men if they had jumper cables.
What she didn't know but would soon find out was the car belonged to U.S. Secretary
of the Interior Ryan Zinke who had joined U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander inside the Great
Smoky Mountains National Park Saturday to promote The National Park Restoration Act.
"I didn't pay that much attention to it.
It could have be (government) roadwork or something, I didn't know," she said laughing.
As she tells it, the men pulled the Suburban next to hers and a different, older man got
out and connected the cables all while Drew was taking photos to document the event.
"I'm taking pictures of the hood of my car up because my boss won't believe me
saying my car is broken down because I already have a car in the shop … I want to show
him I'm getting work done on my car," she said.
The car started right up.
Drew and the man exchanged pleasantries, the two shook hands and the man handed her what
Drew said felt like a silver dollar.
Once she was in her car she looked over the medallion and realized who had helped her
out.
Zinke's name is on one side of the coin, the department's logo on the other.
Later that night, when talking to her son, it began to sink in.
Her son told her the man was in line to become president.
"I wouldn't expect someone like that to help me out … leave it to me, if it was
President Trump I probably would have asked him too," she said laughing.
When asked about the event, Zinke's press secretary, Heather Swift, said the secretary
did in fact give Drew a jump.
He said she was a nice lady and it was the right thing to do."
This isn't the only time that Zinke has done something above and beyond.
Every week in DC through the Park Service, veterans get together to clean the Vietnam
Vets Memorial Wall.
The labor is intensive, but in the end, every inch of the 247-foot wall gets sprayed down,
scrubbed by hand and polished.
On Sunday, April 9, the Virginia and Maryland chapters of Rolling Thunder rode up to the
memorial before sunrise.
Clad in leather motorcycle gear with a colorful array of patriotic patches sewn in, a dozen
members of the iconic biker club, most of them veterans, ready for an hour of washing
and scrubbing the black wall.
They had the special company that morning.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke stood alongside them to clean the memorial.
That brought tears to the eyes of those veterans.
The Trump appointee and Navy SEAL scrubbed bird poop off the monument and polished away
with vigor.
When Zinke was asked why he showed up to wash the wall, he said, "Rolling Thunder is here
to wash the wall.
I'm here to help them."
The Secretary also rode a horse to his office on his first day, shoveled snow off the Lincoln
Memorial steps after a snowstorm, gave stunned tourists a personal tour of the cavernous
cathedral beneath the Lincoln Memorial and has engaged in international sock diplomacy.
Remember how Obama shut down the parks in 2013 over the budget?
Asked if he would ever do that, Zinke replied, "No.
What is my job?
'For the benefit and enjoyment of the people.'
How does [shutting down the parks] benefit anybody?
My boss would back me up, too.
Everybody works for somebody, and the President works for the people."
When President Trump chose Zinke to appoint to the position, he chose a good man.
You would expect nothing less from a SEAL and from someone who hails from the great
state of Montana.
Montana's loss was a nation's gain and the same way that Zinke helped a woman whose
car broke down, is the same way he helps vets clean their memorial wall and it's the same
way that he works for each of us by putting Americans and America first and taking the
time to finish the job.
How does this make you feel?
Did he do a great job?
Will you share your thoughts below and post this story to a friend?
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