Yet, after his single term as president, Carter truly stood up and stood tall. In the ensuing decades, his dedicated efforts in the service of mankind proved that he was, without a doubt, a very decent, highly principled and widely influential man.

Indeed, Carter's winning of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize recognized his tireless work to "find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development", the White House Historical Association bio notes.

Carter's driving sense of purpose reminded me of the stated mission of the all-boy, Jesuit-run Catholic high school I attended, which was to build "men for others".

At Christmas each year, under a program called Operation Others, we would participate in preparing and delivering meals to dozens of families in the community who, due to poverty or misfortune, might otherwise have gone hungry on that special day.

The idea was for us to personally deliver the meals to the homes of the local poor and interact with them, so we could not only see how they lived, but also have the chance to engage with them as equals.

Carter, a selfless and hardworking community man, was a kindred spirit.

He quite literally rolled up his sleeves and worked for decades with Habitat for Humanity, a charity that sprouted in his home state of Georgia in the early 1940s as a Christian service group whose aim was racial reconciliation.