John E. “Jack” Bennett
April 9, 1918—October 9, 2008

No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again (John 3:3).
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him (John 6:44).

Jack Bennett was a big man with a towering intellect—an Annapolis grad, WW II hero of Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal and 5 war patrols in the famed submarine Queenfish, nuclear sub commander in the Cold War, and Ronald Reagan staffer in Sacramento after his Naval career. I was blessed to be used by God, flawed vessel that I am, as the Holy Spirit applied the above absolute truths to Jack at the age of 79.

As they entered his mind, and that brilliant mind wrestled with them, he peppered me with tough questions about their meaning, and the meaning of life and the existence of God…and I struggled, in my inadequacy, to explain them as God had given me understanding. The story of God’s grace in Jack’s life is by far the most extraordinary thing I have personally witnessed real time in my life. Long before Jack accepted Christ as his Savior, our providential God was protecting him.

It was a busy day, Friday, May 26, 1996, in my office in Clearwater, FL. I was a stock broker with Dean Witter, but my real passion was writing. My phone was ringing off the hook, not because the market was booming, but because of an op-ed column I had written for the Wall Street Journal that appeared that day that had resonated with readers all across the country. Nothing I’ve written before or since has drawn such a response, try as I might. The piece was entitled, Still the Noblest Calling, [Editors note: the original URL (link) referenced in this article is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.] and it was about my first visit to the traveling version of the Vietnam Memorial Wall when it came to Tampa, FL. It had been 27 years since I had returned from my duty in that war as a USAF fighter pilot—I flew 268 combat missions in that war, surviving by God’s grace alone. I had three dear friends, all fighter pilots, whose names were on that wall.

I made a number of new friendships from those telephone calls that day, but none meant more to both of us than the one that began with a man’s deep, dignified voice over the phone. He identified himself as Jack Bennett, a World War II Navy veteran and retired Captain living in Southern California.

He said, “Thank you for putting into words what I’ve felt but couldn’t verbalize for over 50 years.”

I replied, “Well, thank you, sir.” Then he said, “It brought tears to my eyes.” I was stuck for a response to that. And then he forever endeared himself to me with this remark: “You will do more with your pen than you ever did with your fighter plane.”

That so stroked my ego I don’t remember what else he said, except that we swapped email addresses and I knew I had another new friend. It was the beginning of an extraordinary story with eternal consequences. At that time I was a Christian, an elder in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), a sinner saved by God’s grace alone…and Jack was not, but we became best friends, emailing back and forth sometimes several times a day.

Exactly a year later, after we had swapped war stories and gotten to know one another well thru hundreds of emails, God applied the first “No one..” to Jack. No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. Our relationship changed in a heartbeat. It went from best friends to student/teacher, from two good ole boys shooting the electronic breeze to deadly serious questions and answers concerning eternal verities, the younger struggling to communicate to the inquiring elder the only lesson in life that matters. In Jack’s words, a “strange thing” happened. Jack had ascended the ladder of success in an extraordinary life, but, in the twilight of his years he suddenly had a nagging fear his ladder was propped against the wrong wall. The trigger was something I wrote and a TV show he “just happened” to watch.

The Los Angeles Times had just run a column of mine entitled, “God, Country, Forgiveness.” [Editors note: the original URL (link) referenced in this article is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.] I will always think it was not my theme of God and forgiveness that appealed to the editors, but my graphic word picture of a horrific post-midnight gunfight on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos that sold them on the column, but God uses all things for his purposes.

I awoke to the following email (Jack has given me written permission to publish his private emails to me):

From: bennett
To: wetterling
Date: 31 May 1997 02:11 hours

JD – A strange thing has happened to me tonight. In my response of the 26th to your fine essay in the LAT I adamantly refrained from forgiving the Japanese collectively for their inhumane acts, repeated atrocities and dishonorable national policy during and prior to WW II…. Then tonight I watched a Memorial Day revival show on TV that has me reconsidering everything. Brigadier General Robbie Risner, USAF (Ret.) was on and described his experiences as a POW at the Hanoi Hilton. He was the senior USAF pilot shot down and taken prisoner. I never watch these religion programs but was quite impressed by this one. As you indicated in your column, it’s very difficult to forgive, but the sheer coincidence of the issue being put before me so vividly on the heals of your eloquent appeal to forgive—or was it coincidence?—has got me rethinking. The interview was all real and believable but my view is still out of focus. Thought you’d find this odd fallout of some interest. With kind regards, Jack

The email gave me chills. I was very familiar with Brigadier General Robbie Risner’s testimony. He had spent seven horrible years in the Hanoi Hilton and attributed his survival to his faith in Christ. Here was the opportunity I had been waiting and praying for—a wide open door to present the Gospel to my friend.

I responded, “…it appears to me that God is working in your life, Jack.” And I went on to explain to him how God had worked in my life and had opened my eyes to the kingdom of God and given me the gift of faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Within a few hours I got a reply:

JD – “I have to get my priorities straight and not waste my limited time left at 79 on misc. drivel, admin. details and laziness. I’ve been living on borrowed time, as the tired expression goes, for many years due to extra hazardous experiences in 3 wars, operational submarine accidents, really close calls in combat, two woundings which could have easily been fatal, getting stuck under a ledge at 300 ft in a tiny submarine and many more events that don’t leap to the front of my ancient mind. I’ve never stopped very long to try to sort it all out philosophically…. You may not have all the answers, JD, but you’re way ahead of me for sure.”

And he commenced to lay bare his anguished soul in the longest email he ever sent me. He was a man of the world, a war hero who had seen it all, done it all and been more successful than most at age 79, confessing in his inimitable way to a friend, a 53-year-old kid, that he hadn’t a clue as to what it was all about…and time was running out. That email marked the beginning of Jack’s journey to eternal life.

When God begins a work in a person, when he sends the Holy Spirit to open ones eyes and give him a spiritual rebirth, he sees things he never saw before. And Jack saw plenty of things. He asked me hard questions, questions that had never crossed his mind before, and I agonized over the answers and replied. I was so grateful we were having an email conversation and not a face to face one, so that I had lots of time to carefully craft my answers and confirm them with scripture references. I sent him a number of books, beginning with the Bible with a sticky tab at John, chapter one, and said “Start here.”

Some folks think that salvation comes when one carefully considers the promises of God in the Bible and decides to believe them and he is then born again spiritually. But that is not what Jesus said in John 3:3. He said, “No one…can see…unless he is born again.” He said you are dead in your sin. He meant spiritually dead, but the metaphor of physical death fits perfectly. Dead men cannot see. Dead men cannot choose. He cannot even see his choices until God works a miracle in him, opening his eyes to the truth. The smartest man in the world, even a nuclear submarine commander, cannot reason himself into faith in God. The Bible is foolishness to him until God does a mighty work within. Only if the power of the Holy Spirit changes his heart and opens his eyes—gives him spiritual rebirth—can he see God’s truth. No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.

I watched God work in my friend Jack’s life and it was a beautiful thing to behold. Even when I mangled some of my answers to Jack, and today when I reread some of my emails, I am embarrassed at how badly I mangled God’s truth. But even then, God can use all things for his purposes, all things for his glory, even the words of a flawed evangelist like me.

Having worked this miracle in a person, God does not leave it up to a born again sinner to find his way to heaven as best he can. In in John 6:44 Jesus said, No one can come to me unless the Father Who sent me draws him. In other words, we don’t find Jesus on our own, The Father draws us to his Son. The Greek word (hel-koo’-o) translated “draws” means compel, draw with inward power, not entice, not persuade, but compel irresistibly. Presbyterians have another term for it: irresistible grace. We get faith in Christ as the Son of God who died in our place, faith that he died for our sins, faith that he paid our ransom that we might spend eternity with him, irresistibly applied to us through the overwhelming power of the Holy Spirit at work within us. He inclines our will, he works in us to want him. The Holy Spirit works within a born again person to incline our will to believe…and he overcomes our resistance, he overcomes our unbelief. Have you been drawn to Christ? Have you invited Him into your heart? And if you have, I ask you, who made you to differ from those who have not? Well, Jesus gives us the answer with crystal clarity. No one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws Him. Isn’t that amazing? We are dead in our sins and blind to the things of God until he works a miracle in us to open our eyes and draw us to Christ. Even if we leave skid marks in the sand God drags us irresistibly to his Son. I watched Jack struggle, I watched him being drawn…dragged….to faith in Christ. I never dragged him. It was the persistent haunting desire for understanding in Jack that kept our dialog going, that kept his tough questions coming. It was the Holy Spirit working within him. Oh, what a blessing for Jack, what a blessing for me to behold God answering my prayers in the life of my friend.

NO ONE can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again (John 3:3).
NO ONE can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him (John 6:44).

It was six intense months of agonizing inquiry on Jack’s part, and anguished responses on my part, of two steps forward and sometimes three steps back, of going over and over God’s plan of salvation for sinners beginning with these two quotes by Jesus. Then in November of 1997, at a WW II submariners reunion in a Las Vegas casino hotel, Jack’s life long friend, Harry Hall, prayed with Jack and Jack asked Christ into his heart. And ever since I have called him Brother Jack—my brother in Christ.

But that was not the end of the Bible lessons. In fact they went into high gear for several years after that because Jack now had an intense desire to know Jesus Christ better and, in his immortal words, “JD, I have no time to waste.” Now that Brother Jack understood his need for God, he had a Holy Spirit inspired hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matt. 5:6). He asked more questions with more urgency than ever. And still my patience knew no bounds, a revelation that amazed my wife, would shock my children and still baffles me. It is irrefutable evidence of God’s grace that He could satisfy Jack’s inquisitive intellect with my sophomoric theology. Our Lord told the Apostle Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).

Well, that tough old sailor had lots more years left than either one of us thought at the time. And the joy of being used by God to come alongside another struggling sinner and walk hand in hand with him for 12 years on earth and into eternal life is a joy beyond the power of words to convey.

It was years of email Bible lessons later when Jack responded with this application of scripture to his life.

Date: 16 Sep 2003 12:11:50
JD, I’ve reflected deeply on my life to date and reached these conclusions. While you were showing me the path to salvation I had trouble remembering ever having sinned. So what was to be forgiven? Since then I’ve recalled more sins than I cared to acknowledge and have come to realize the magnitude of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and His gift of forgiveness to me personally.
I have sinned many times…and am so very grateful and awed that Jesus painfully gave his life that all my sins and future sins be forgiven before I even existed. I was remiss in not leading my children to church even though I was absent at sea during much of their youth. I have been intolerant of my enemies, whom I now finally forgive. My feelings of guilt for excitingly pursuing scientific theories about the universe were unjustified as these can coexist with religion. In fact, God made it possible for man’s brain to unravel such mysteries. My habitual failure to attend church services, “contemplating” at home instead, was pure laziness…. After taking stock I’m generally satisfied but realize that this is possible only because I’m now content in the knowledge that I’m already saved regardless of my shortcomings. And I attribute this to my mother’s early teachings and your own later guidance. You have continued to this day to answer my questions about God, which never cease. The more I learn the more I realize how blessed I am. And now that I’m walking the walk I feel an obligation to talk the talk and bring others into the kingdom of God as my dear friends brought me.

We live in perilous times, JD, and I’m grateful for the serenity you led me to with Jesus. Your poor pupil, Jack

Jack and I spent our last days on earth together in May, 2008. It was the best of times. He was serene as our time together drew to a close.

I said, “It’s time for me to go, Brother Jack.”
He said, “Then I won’t see you again.”
I said “I’ll see you in heaven if not before.”
He smiled back with that peace that passes all understanding, assured that heaven awaits him, and said, “You sure have changed my life, JD.” It was the umpteenth time in two days he had expressed his gratitude.

I replied with exasperation in my tone, “Brother Jack, you know and I know that God changed your life. I was just a simple tool, a very simple tool in His hands.”
“Good-bye, brother.”
“Good-bye, brother.”
Now Jack has been released from the prison of his languishing body. He has thrown away his electric scooter, hearing aide and glasses and resides with his Maker and Savior Jesus Christ in eternal bliss beyond the meaning of words…and we will meet again, 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).
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Captain John E. “Jack” Bennett, USN (Ret.), USNA Class of ’41, served on the heavy cruiser San Francisco (CA-38) from Pearl Harbor through the Solomons and Aleutian Campaigns, including the night battle at CapeEsperence and Guadalcanal. He was wounded at Pearl Harbor and Guadalcanal. Then, volunteering for subs, he made all 5 war patrols in the Queenfish (SS-393), during which she sank several thousand tons of Japanese shipping, including a carrier, and rescued 18 Allied POWs plus 13 downed American airmen. He was awarded the Navy Cross, Navy-Marine Corps Medal, Commendation Medal with Combat V, Purple Heart, two Presidential Unit Citations and 13 battle stars on his Asiatic-Pacific ribbon. After several peacetime sea commands in nuclear submarines and shore tours, which included U.S. Naval Academy Asst. Athletic Director, NationalWarCollege and first Program Director, Deep Submergence Program, he retired in 1966 to pursue interests in deep ocean operations and technology. He then served in the Reagan Administration in Sacramento and Washington. He met his Maker with serenity October 9, 2008, at age 90.

Condescenced from a memoir in progress entitled No Time to Waste, by JD Wetterling.