|
About Colonel "Bo" Bottomly
|
| |
 Colonel
Heath Bottomly ... known generally by his service nickname "Bo" ... was born in Chinook, Montana in 1919.
He was the second-born of seven sons of Judge R.V. Bottomly, Associate Justice of the Montana Supreme Court.
His major youthful influence came from his close association with a Nez Perce Indian remnant of the Chief Joseph
surrender and through his rough-out, frontier guide, grandfather, Buffalo Ben. Along with his six brothers, he
achieved Eagle Scout.
Heath graduated from the University of Montana in 1941, the US Military Academy at West Point in 1944. He won a
Masters Degree in Middle Eastern Studies at the American University in Beirut, Lebanon and in Geopolitics from
George Washington University in DC. He is a member of the International Society of Journalists and has virtually
his entire life recorded in daily journals. He teaches Journaling in the local Jr High
|
| |
 During WWII he flew a P-38, Lightning tour in the Southwest Pacific and commanded the first
jet squadron in the orient. Colonel Bo's Middle East adventures as a student, a peace-keeper, a spy, a fugitive
and as a POW are documented in his stories Blind Glory, Kyrgyz Assignment and Escape from Afghanistan.
Later, while peacekeeping with the UN Mixed Armistice Commission in Palestine and flying the French Mirage IIIv,
he was shot down, surviving on the desert with a family of Arab nomads.
|
| |
 Colonel Bo served as Secretary of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and recorded the secret, emergency,
JCS meetings with Secretary McNamara during the Gulf of Tonkin Incident that opened the Vietnam War.
Later he fought in Vietnam, Laos and Thailand for three years as a jungle, fighter wing commander. His awards include
the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Legion of Merit, America's highest award for meritorious service, which
he won 4 times.
This life was not all a rosy rocket to fame and glory.
Like many Viet Vets, Colonel Bo was spiritually or psychologically wounded out there. He returned an arrogant alcoholic.
This ultimately destroyed his family, his career as a radio news analyst and his ministry with Campus Crusade for
Christ.
|
| |
Because of my special Middle East Intelligence clearances, I have been
recalled to active duty on three occasions … Latest in 2002 … Terrorist mastermind, Osama bin Laden was reported
escaping from Afghanistan to China through the hidden Wakhan Defile in the Hindu Kush Mountains. I had been through
there twice on special assignment, so I was recalled to lead a Hazara Search Team into the Central Asian Knot.
At sundown on Day-12, the caravan
had pulled up to rest our camels at the Muji Oasis east of Kashi, China. There at a Zen tribal campfire, I was
inducted into the world's oldest craft fraternity: Raconteurs Internationals.
That which you are about to read or hear will sound like stories, but really they are more than that. They are
the narration of my hundred years of American history as told in exciting stories. I grew up in frontier Montana
at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. The first collection of stories, WESTWIND WHISPERS, tells about life
in a family of nine kids in the little cattle town, Chinook. We hiked the plains and mountains, rode ponies to
school and found our best friends and wildest adventures with a little Indian village along the river.
|
| |
 WWII
broke as I graduated from West Point. I chose Army Air Corps, so the next collection … WORLD WAR II & KOREA
AIR BATTLES … are airwar stories from my War Journal. I kept a daily diary of our battlesfrom the Solomons in the
Southwest Pacific clear up through the Philippines through Okinawa to standing with MacArthur on the battleship
Missouri in Tokyo Bay. The Korean War adventures, which came right then, are included.
|
| |
 When
the Tonkin Gulf Incident provoked the war in Vietnam, I was Secretary of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon.
When a war breaks, a fighter pilot must fly. Like all Namvets, the Vietnam War had an unusually complex psychological
impact on my life. I have told a lot of war stories about what happened out there, but I find that my overall view
of the war … My Vietnam … is imbedded in four air battles … together with the classic, 'Nam-stuff' that went along
with them. For purity, in telling these four stories, I have lifted the pivotal patches directly from my Vietnam
War Journal.
|
| |
| |
My next assignment was to the Middle East and it included an intriguing
spy assignment. Then, because I became somewhat of a Middle East expert in the Pentagon and White House, these
stories from my MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL include my adventures from Morocco to Jerusalem and on into Central Asia during
the Iran Hostage Debacle and the Gulf War.
|
| |
 After
a miracle recovery at Scripps, La Jolla, Colonel Bo retired to the hidden Scott River Valley in far northern California
to start a new life. Employing his experience in Scouting, in the military and in Campus Crusade, he developed
a program of Wilderness
Adventure designed to keep other young people from being caught up in the drug addiction trap.
The American Eagle Teamwork Adventure is a tough-love, teen, drug and alcohol prevention program. The program won
a Religious Heritage of America gold medal in 1990 as the most effective, troubled youth program at large in America.
He now is retired with his second wife, Penny, at the craft and culture community in the San Jacinto mountains
at Idyllwild, California where he writes stories of his Twentieth Century and publishes them on tape, CD and in
books.
|
| |
|
|
