The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
by JD Wetterling, Guest Editorial
17 November 2004
Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).
There is no more disturbing story in the whole Bible than Job's. God allowed the devil to challenge Job's faith to the utmost to prove that God's children could not taken from him, could not be snatched out of the Divine palm-even by the devil himself (John 10:28).
Job was a wealthy, God-fearing man, "blameless and upright." When the devil began his assault on Job's soul, his seven sons, three daughters, huge flocks of sheep and camels, hundreds of oxen and donkeys and the servants who tended them were killed and his house destroyed in a single day. That was just the beginning. Satan then inflicted horrible diseases on Job.
He was in so much physical pain and mental agony his wife told him to "Curse God and die" (Job 2:9). But Job refused, though he was at a loss to understand what was happening. He persevered, on and on through a story that seems to have no end, until at last the devil gave up.
It was, literally, a superhuman faith-a gift instilled and protected by Almighty God-that kept Job from cursing God and losing his salvation.
And God rewarded him with more material blessings than he had before.
The devil's first effort to snatch my soul from God's palm occurred April 16, 1969. My best friend, Robert "Vince" Willett and I were airborne in the middle of the night over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, bordering South Vietnam. By that stage in my one-year tour in Vietnam I had become a flight leader with 250 combat missions under my belt. "The Trail" was a network of dirt roads through the jungle in the supposedly "neutral" neighboring country of Laos, a fiction proclaimed by the United Nations. It was the vital supply line for the Communist forces invading South Vietnam, and the big anti-aircraft guns were positioned along it to protect the southbound Russian-made 2.5-ton trucks.
Vince was a country boy from Montana and we hit it off from the day he arrived. He had a wide grin, less than perfect posture, and a relaxed way of walking.
But what he lacked in military bearing he made up for with the heart of a tiger-an asset for a fighter pilot. We liked the night missions because they were "target-rich" and we could do great damage.
We agreed there was something spiritual about flying at night. The Super Sabre's cramped cockpit was cozier, with the warm red glow of the instrument panel, the smell of hot hydraulic fluid, and the muffled whine of spinning turbine blades.
Our strike that night was directed by a C-130 cargo plane flying high over The Trail with a large see-in-the-dark device-a novelty in that era. It revealed a truck convoy on a steep mountain road below us.
The C-130 crew told us where to drop our bombs, and as flight leader I dive-bombed the convoy first, setting the lead truck afire. Its load of mortar rounds cooked like a popcorn popper, illuminating the rest of the convoy-ten trucks. Vince made scrap metal out of the tail-end truck, and the rest were trapped with nowhere to hide.
Suddenly, from off to the east, a neon geyser of anti-aircraft fire erupted. Decision time. There were no cockpit indications that the guns were radar guided; they could only be shooting blindly at the sound of the planes in the dark. The rules of engagement allowed the flight leader to decide whether or not to attack guns that shoot at the flight, or just turn tail and go home.
Without hesitation I decided to attack.
As I dove on the guns, the tracer fire looked like someone was throwing handfuls of multi-colored Christmas tree lights in my face, but God was still my courage and I knew no fear. I dropped my bomb and the shooting stopped.
Then Vince rolled in, his voice sounding unruffled on the radio. Another gun site began to shoot. A split-second after Vince's bomb hit the target, a mushroom-shaped fireball lit up the mountaintop.
I thought it was the enemy ammunition stockpile and let out a war whoop...but I was wrong. There was no radio call from Vince.
The silence screamed. I'd just watched my best friend die. I remember little of that flight home.
Losing a fighter pilot was tragic, and every colonel on the base was waiting for me when I parked the plane.
When I stepped off the boarding ladder I was drenched in sweat, every ounce of adrenaline was spent, and my legs wouldn't hold. Someone put an arm around my waist, and then I did the most ungallant, "uncool" thing a fighter pilot can do.
I cried. After an interminable debriefing where I supplied as much information as I could for the Search-and-Rescue team, I was like a dead man walking in the dark back to my quarters.
ÊWhy would a loving God allow my friend to die in the prime of his life with a new wife at home waiting for him? Why did I decide to attack? Why did God allow me to live instead of Vince? I would-a thousand times over-rather it be the other way around. What is the point, God?
I'm sorry but I don't get it. How was I going to live with myself for making a decision that led to the death of my best friend? I understood how Job's wife felt when she told her husband to curse God and die.
When I walked in the door of my little "hootch" I saw a reflection in the vanity mirror of a very old, haggard 25-year-old man without a spark of life-I still don't look that old. Instead of falling to my knees to praise God for a brave young friend who's allotted days on earth were up, and to pray for strength and the peace that passes all understanding for his widow, I reached for a bottle.
At sunrise I was sitting in the sand at the water's edge of the South China Sea, still in my smelly, salt-ringed flight suit, in abject despair-a heinous sin-and just conscious enough to remember it. I would like to tell you this story of God's providence had a fairy tale ending, but it did not. This is the real world.
The crash site and Vince's remains have never been found, though Defense Department teams are still searching, God bless them, 34 years later.
I hope and pray that Vince and I will meet again one day, where ":No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him:" (1 Corinthians 2:9)
I was, I am still in the palm of God's hand but there were days:weeks where I felt like I was hanging on by my fingernails. The truth is it was God who was doing the hanging on and the outcome was never in doubt.
When I finally quit wallowing in self-pity and got back into the Bible, his peace returned. My prayers, like some of King David's Psalms, went from confused queries and angry confrontation to realization and resolve that he was God and I was not, that he was in charge, not me-a lesson relearned by an incorrigible young fighter pilot. Renewed faith in God's providence over his creation brought an end to the folly of days wasted in angst-ridden hindsight.
God has given me the grace to carry this cross to my grave. As God told the Apostle Paul in denying his prayerful request to have "a thorn" removed from his flesh, ":my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9).
His grace is sufficient for me, too.
J.D. "Jerry" Wetterling is a PCA elder and the resident manager of Ridge Haven, the PCA Conference Center and Retreat. He was raised in rural Stronghurst and graduated from Stronghurst High School before joining the U.S. Air Force.
He flew 268 combat missions in Vietnam and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with oak leaf cluster and the Air Medal with 16 oak leaf clusters.
Besides The Quill, he has also published essays and columns in The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek.com, and World magazine.