My excellent friend and next-door neighbor, Bill Woodard, allowed me to share his amazing story of two members of his Methodist Church Sunday School class. Bill penned a very intimate, detailed account to honor them. It was so incredible, I had to share it with my readers in an edited, scaled down form. I hope it blesses you the way it did me.
Jack Walker and his wife Bettie recently celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary, as well as Jack’s 99th birthday.
Reaching the age of 99 is a significant achievement—one that almost certainly requires divine intervention. In the US, less than two-tenths of ONE percent of people over 65 actually reach the age of 99. The percentage of the population of the USA that reach 99 is so small, it’s in the thousandths of one percent.
At 24, Jack left his good job to fulfill his military obligation during World War II. He wanted to pursue his dream of becoming an aircraft pilot, so he enlisted in the Army Air Corps and was sent to El Paso, Texas, for training. Unfortunately Jack’s less than perfect eyesight disqualified him from becoming a fighter aircraft pilot, so they offered Jack training as a glider pilot. Glide landing is basically the controlled crash landing of an airplane without an engine, wheels, brakes, or landing gear.
During glider training, Jack made friends with a lady who introduced him to Bettie on a blind date. The two fell in love at first sight and started dating. Even when Jack got transferred 250 miles away, they continued their long-distance relationship. Jack often went secretly AWOL to travel 250 miles to see Bettie. Sometimes a pilot friend of Jack’s would use a training mission to fly Jack part of the way, and then he would have to hitchhike the remainder of the way to Bettie’s and back to the base. Fortunately, Jack never got caught AWOL, but he did land the enduring affection of Bettie in the mean time.
Jack was transferred to North Carolina and immediately got orders to go to Europe. Jack wasted no time proposing to Bettie, and they decided to get married before Jack was deployed overseas. Bettie, a brave seventeen-year-old traveled alone by train from Texas to North Carolina to tie the knot. They were surprised to find out that North Carolina had a thirty-day waiting period to get a marriage license, so they slipped across the line to South Carolina and tied the knot. They had only 8 days together before Jack left for the war in Europe.
Bettie was lonely and brokenhearted as she rode the train back to Texas to live with her parents until Jack’s return. Soon after her arrival back home, they were notified that Bettie’s older brother was missing in action and presumed dead at sea. A short time later her younger brother died from injuries in the European theatre of war. During his time overseas, Bettie feared that Jack might share the same fate as her two brothers, and that she might never see her new husband again.
Jack’s primary mission was to fly infantry troops into battle, and land them behind enemy lines—a very dangerous job to say the least. Gliders were towed by aircraft to high altitudes, then released to land silently in open fields for the soldiers to capture their objective (usually a key bridge or village). Jack would have to stay with the infantry behind the lines until American forces arrived to rescue them. Then he would go back to his original unit and start the process all over again.
The most dangerous part was when the Germans drove large stakes into the ground, or when they flooded the landing areas—so that when a glider hit a stake or the water, it would totally destroy the fragile glider plane, killing or severely injuring all aboard. Gliders were also known as “Flying Coffins.”
By the grace of God, Jack survived the war with only lingering back issues. He came home to the waiting arms of Bettie on the day of their first anniversary. They settled in Birmingham where they raised seven children, and were eventually blessed with twelve grandchildren, and thirteen great-grandchildren.
Perhaps an even greater miracle is the faithful 73 year marriage they continue to enjoy. It’s probably even more rare than reaching the age of 99.
On this Independence Day, I salute Jack and Bettie Walker, and all the amazing men and women of the Greatest Generation.
