Our Roots

Last updated on: February 3, 2024 at 7:11 am by Mark Williams

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Our Roots 2024-02-03T07:11:35-07:00 Mark Williams

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…ON THE DOWNHILL SIDE OF WORLD WAR II

Looking back on our roots, my mom was married, Jeannette Gardner, to a naval aviator, a Lieutenant by the name of Paul Benthin on the downhill side of World War Two. He died in a training mission over the Chocolate Mountains east of Phoenix, in the desert between Arizona and California. The oxygen wasn’t working in his plane and he basically went to sleep and winged his torpedo bomber with a crew of three into the mountain. Mom was nineteen when he died. She was also three months pregnant with twins, my future older brother and sister. She moved back in with her parents, my maternal grandparents, Jessie and James Gardner. He was a mechanic at the Alameda Naval Air Station in California.

I am guessing mom met Paul there and they fell in love, married, then they had the sex, she got pregnant and he did his wingover and that was that. Maybe not in that order but maybe. Society would say at that time they would marry first before they had the sex, but this war time and things were wonky. What they should have done or what was hoped for was not always the way things went. The twins were born, a girl and a boy, and neither were two pounds at birth, three months early, and not expected to live passed six months. They are still alive today, 2024. But in 1944, a nineteen-year-old with two dying twins, and only cloth diapers, shit was real—figuratively and for real.

Fast forward….

Fast forward about three years and in walks my dad. He was a handsome bastard and commanded the Black Cat Squadron of Navy PBY’s, in the south pacific and now was transitioning to bigger flying boats like Martin Mariners, more of our roots are added. I think the story goes, at least as we were told, she was working as a base secretary and looked out the window. She called the squadron office across from her window and dad answered. She very politely introduced herself and that she was a secretary at another part of the base and then asked him if he knew one of his aircraft was on fire.

He didn’t.

But it did seem worthy of him….

He allegedly dropped the phone and ran outside without even saying goodbye. But it did seem worthy of him calling her back and thanking her as well as apologizing for the swear words he said as he dropped the phone and ran to the fire. Then, a date, then more dates, then the kids, then—I am sure—kissing and walks, then marriage. Mom was about twenty-three when she married a second time, Dad was thirty-three, ten years ahead of her. I always thought that was gutsy of him, adopting and raising another man’s kids. But they really weren’t.

They were all his and they had no idea of any other father other than her parents she still lived with after Paul Benthin died. They agreed to have more. Dad was going to be a career officer and was well on his way, having been in uniform since 1940 and then flying combat missions in a slow as hell plane in the South Pacific. All of the combat planes then were not pressurized like they are today. Which meant they had to fly lower to still be able to breath. All the planes, on both sides, were in the same situation. Which meant not only was he flying a slower than hell plane, but it was also a big plane, painting a big target and flying low.

That was about to, well, change.

I don’t know what it was….

During an annual flight physical, something came up. I don’t know what it was in the late-forties, but if it was a lab today, they would tell him his A1-C was way too high. He was then diagnosed as a diabetic, now an insulin dependent diabetic. It also meant he couldn’t stay in the Navy. The only thing he ever wanted, and now couldn’t have, he had pulled from him. There was nothing for him in Alameda except her parents, as well as an entire city designed around the Navy he had to leave.

Where did she turn but maybe to God, definitely to her parents.

Our lives change….

Our lives change, sometimes on a dime, or a lab test. Dramatically change. Where do we turn? We want to know the answers but where? God? He often is silent. We can beg and beg and still, nothing.

…and yet….

He wants us to ask. God wants to be included. He is part of our roots-our foundation. He also wants us to trust, sometimes in the fog of war-life’s war, we can’t see two feet in front of us. But He can. ”Do you trust Me?” He will ask. He knows we don’t all the time, and yet we keep coming back to Him. We recognize Him.

“Be still and know that I am God,” it says.

The Plan is always perfect.

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About Mark Williams

Mark Williams spent the first twenty-one years of his career as a Special Agent for the Organized Crime Division of the State Attorney General’s Office. As part of his duties, he investigated organized crime, homicides, and fraud cases submitted by other agencies to that office. He has traveled across the United States as an instructor for law enforcement in various capacities. After he retired, he became a high school English teacher at an inner-city school in central Phoenix where he is the fourth generation in his family to live in the valley. Mark was married for almost thirty-eight years and is a retired widower. He has three children and ten grandchildren. You can read more about the author here.

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