Bob Armstrong: From Vietnam helicopter to First Baptist
Bob Armstrong is a great storyteller, and he has lots of stories to tell. He has led a life full of interesting twists and turns and he has a way of sharing them that puts the listener right into the heart of the story, as if watching it unfold before his or her own eyes.
Armstrong, a pillar of the First Baptist Church of Boca Grande, lives in South Gulf Cove. Pastor Gary Beatty is one of his best friends and a frequent golf buddy. They recently participated together in the fall Honor Flight out of the Punta Gorda airport. They joined other local veterans on a day-long trip to Washington, D.C., visiting the various national military monuments, the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.
Bob served in the Army, although he tried for more than a year to enter the Coast Guard right after high school. His father had served in the Coast Guard, and Bob loved being on the water, so it seemed like the ideal place.
His mother wanted Bob to continue his education when he graduated from high school, but Bob had other ideas. The military draft was still in effect, and Bob wanted to take control of his own future by enlisting in another branch of the military, which gave him more opportunity to choose how he would serve.
After a year of waiting to be called up to the Coast Guard, Bob was still at home, so he decided to try the Army. The recruiter promised him that he likely would be given his first choice of assignment; or at least his second choice. Bob no longer remembers what either of those choices was, since his third choice was the one that was successful. That was “aviation.”
Bob knew nothing about aviation. He grew up in Massachusetts, and water was more his environment.
“I’d never even been in a plane,” said Armstrong. “ I didn’t know anything about aircraft or flying, or anything else. After boot camp I ended up at Fort Rucker, Alabama (now known as Fort Novosel), which was the biggest Army helicopter training facility at that time.”
He was waiting for his permanent assignment there when he and one other new recruit received orders for Vietnam.
“Now, that didn’t bother me at all,” Bob said. “I knew Vietnam, where it was, a little bit of its history.” His learning took a major leap when he overheard a young man who had just returned from fighting in Vietnam talking about his experiences. Bob discovered that the U.S. was fighting there, and that he would soon be part of that history being made.
Not long after, Bob received special orders to go to Fort Bragg (now known as Fort Liberty), Army Special Forces, to the Counterinsurgency Special Warfare Training School.
He found that most of the 30 people being trained in that program were “top brass,” and he wondered why he and one other enlisted man were included.
“We got training in firing every single weapon that the U.S. Army had, from the .45 handgun to the 155 howitzer, and everything in between. We played with plastic explosives; we learned how to breathe through a piece of bamboo under the water if we were being pursued by the Viet Cong or the North Vietnamese; we learned a little bit of karate, so we could snap somebody’s neck or kill somebody. We learned a little bit about snakes, and so forth,” said Armstrong. When the training ended, Bob was sent to the town of Pleiku, in the central highlands of Vietnam.
“There were no fixed-wing planes there,” Bob recalled, “only helicopters. I was there when we got the first Hueys, and we had 25 of them all set up with machine guns and rockets. So, our job was going to be to look for the enemy, or go on missions where the South Vietnamese troops were surrounded and needed firepower.”
A report from the Fort Liberty web page notes that 1961 was when “America’s helicopter war began.” Bob was a helicopter pilot. “Both Army Aviation and the helicopter came of age during the conflict in Southeast Asia,” the report said. “From the arrival in Vietnam of the first Army helicopter units in December 1961, until the completion of the disengagement processes in 1973, Vietnam was America’s ‘Helicopter War.” And Armstrong was an integral part of it.
He saw serious fighting in Pleiku, but there were few deaths or atrocities there. After about a month, Bob was called in by the Battalion Commander and was offered the chance to go to Warrant School and Flight School. These would both have higher levels of pay and responsibility, but also demanded a five-year service commitment. Bob was not ready to make such a commitment.
“I’d only been in the Army about a year-and-a-half,” Bob explained. “I didn’t know if I wanted to stay in, so I turned it down. I said, ‘If I were going to stay in, I want OCS (Officer Candidate School) and Flight School.’ Then, shortly after he had called me in for Warrant School, he said, ‘Ok, you can have OCS and Flight School, and you can leave immediately.’ “ But, again, this meant a commitment of another five years of military service.
Armstrong did not dislike his service time, since he had not yet seen live combat. Shortly after that, he was transferred to Saigon. It was only for three months, but it was grueling.
“When I got to Saigon, I was assigned to General Joseph Stilwell’s Attack Helicopter Company. He was a Brigadier General, and that’s where the action was,” said Armstrong. This General Stilwell was the son of the more famous general of the same name, who was known for his caustic criticism of his troops in World War II.
The time was full of intense fighting and heart-breaking scenes of Vietnamese civilians and U.S. troops during or after combat. “It really broke my heart. I was a young kid, 20 years old, and I’m thinking, these people had no chance, one way or the other. I was there three months, and I saw more in those three months than the whole 10 months prior to that.”
Finally, however, his time in Saigon was ended. He was transferred to Can Tho, which is in the southernmost part of the Mekong Delta. He was there for his last five months.
Still, to this day, I am not sure what I was supposed to be doing there, but I was sent to live in a former French villa, with an Army captain, an Army lieutenant, who were both pilots, and a World War II sergeant, who was finishing his 20-some years there. We had one Huey helicopter and we had one fixed-wing plane,” he recalled.
“Periodically, I would fly a Vietnamese general up to Saigon and then fly him back. At night we would go up on top of the three-story building we were living in and watch the bombardment.”
Finally, October 18, 1964 arrived.
“I got to Vietnam on April 18 , 1963 – on my birthday – and I left on October 18, 1964, exactly 18 months later.” He was sent to Fort Bragg to Headquarters Company, 82nd Airborne.
“I was not in the airborne. I had never jumped out of a plane,” he said. “I was used to flying planes. The first sergeant I reported to was kind of nasty to me. And then I heard someone calling my name, real loud, ‘Armstrong, get in here!’ I had no idea what I had done to get these folks so riled up. And the guy comes in and shakes my hand and tells me to sit down.”
To his surprise, Bob had been named as crew chief for the commanding general: 3-star General John Bowen.
“What a sweetheart he was, a super man,” Bob remembered. His assumption is that he was chosen for this position over another candidate because of his combat duty, kind of a reward for all he had been through.
“I just had to be ready if the General wanted to go somewhere,” said Armstrong. They only flew together a handful of times, but the General became a friend.
At one point he asked Bob if he planned to make the Army a career, and Bob was honest about his desire to attend college as soon as his service ended. The General made it clear that he could make it possible for Bob to immediately attend OCS School and Flight School (which would mean five more years of Army service), or he could get Bob released from the Army 90 days early so that he could go to college at the start of the next semester. Bob was honored by both offers but knew he wanted to get his degree.
The people in the personnel office refused to believe Bob was entitled to a 90-day early discharge, and they refused to call the General to verify it, fearing they would be in trouble for believing such an outlandish story. One brave soul finally did make the call to the General’s office, and the early release took place.
He went on to obtain his bachelor’s and graduate degrees in the field of education. He finished his first degree in three years and his second in 18 months. He loved learning, but refused to waste time in the classroom.
Always academically competitive, even when young, Bob believes he was blessed with good recall.
“I don’t say this in a boastful way, but in a satisfactory sense: I was successful in everything I attempted to do. And I thank God for that. I know that His hand was on me. I should never have come back from Vietnam, after being part of some of that stuff, especially those three months in Saigon,” he said.
Bob has been successful at a number of businesses over the years, in addition to his academic career. He was principal of an alternative high school where he successfully educated troubled youth.
At the same time, he started a water systems company, and maintained that for six years. He also started a commercial lobster fisheries business, making traps and other materials, as well as catching and processing the lobster and other fish. He often went out on the boat, especially during the summer and on weekends. And he did much of the management work for that business, including purchasing and such.
This business went on for nine years, while he still maintained his teaching work. He also loved to fish for swordfish, and he often used his plane to spot the fish for other commercial fishermen. Bob also used his small planes to run a banner-towing business.
His wife Jan has been by his side for 31 years. They have known each other longer, as they worked in the same school system before they became a couple. “We’ve had a good life,” he said.
They love going to First Baptist Church, praising Pastor Beatty as “a real man of God,” with “a heart for the Gospel.” Bob also wanted to bring special recognition to the Southwest Florida Honor Flight.
“The trip to Washington was great,” he said, “but the thing that really impressed me and made a tear come into my eyes, was when we got back. To see the people who were there! I never expected anything like that. To see these people! I mean, what a huge crowd! That heartened me to such an extent, I said ‘Thank you, Lord, for so many people who really love this country.’”
