Scope and Contents

The collection consists of approximately 3 linear feet of materials documenting Lieutenant Colonel Bob Worthington's U.S. Army service as a combat advisor in Vietnam from 1966-1967 and 1968-1969, as well as materials used to produce three books and one documentary film on his Vietnam experiences. The materials include books; moving images; a scrapbook; flyers and pamphlets; press releases; theses; a Vietnamese phrasebook; guides and handbooks; articles, clippings, and excerpts; Congressional records; propaganda leaflets; film narration; microfiche; letters of appreciation; service records; military orders; memos and correspondence; award citations and certificates; unit and other histories; conference proceedings; periodicals; newspapers; artifacts; slides; photographs; electronic media; and ephemera. The materials are dated predominately 1954-1989 and 2010-2023.

Biographical / Historical

Lieutenant Colonel Elliott Robert "Bob" Worthington was born May 5, 1937. He grew up in New Milford and Roxbury, CT. His military career began in February 1957 when he took a two-year leave of absence from Dartmouth College to enlist in the USMC. He was assigned to the 10th Marines, an artillery regiment in the 2nd Division at Camp Lejeune, NC. He was deployed to the Mediterranean. In July 1958, his unit completed a combat amphibious assault in support of Operation Bluebat in Beirut, Lebanon and then he returned to the United States in the fall of that year. He left active duty in February 1959 to return to Dartmouth, graduating as an ROTC Distinguished Military Graduate in June 1961. Due to an error in his ROTC records, he was not commissioned into the Infantry but into the Chemical Corps. After completing the Chemical Corps Basic Officer Course, he remained at Ft. McClellan, AL where he became a platoon leader in a Smoke Generator Company. He requested a transfer to the Infantry, transferring to the 2nd Infantry Division at Ft. Benning, GA as a rifle company platoon leader in early 1963. That summer he attended Parachute School. On this third jump, he broke his hip, was hospitalized for two months, and then received a one-year medical profile, prohibiting his return to the rifle company. He became the battalion assistant personnel officer. An additional duty was as the battalion coach and captain of its pistol and rifle team. He won the Ft. Benning Post pistol championship, which lead to his becoming the XO of the Division Marksmanship Detachment. He held this position unitl his one-year medical profile expired and was then assigned as the assistant operations officer in an infantry battalion. He was trained by a Special Forces team in unconventional warfare tactics and helicopter tactics. In mid-1965, he received orders to deploy to Vietnam as a combat advisor. Before deployment, he attended the Military Assistant Training Advisor Course at the J.F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center at Ft. Bragg, NC and then the Vietnamese language school at the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio of Monterey, CA. He served in Vietnam as a combat advisor from 1966-1967. Upon returning to the United States, he was assigned to the Armor Officer's Career Course at Ft. Knox, KY and then attended the Army classified Nuclear Weapons Employment Officer Course. After an unsatisfactory period commanding a Basic Combat Training Company at Ft. Benning, he decided to return to Vietnam in order to save money for graduate school. He once again served in Vietnam as a combat advisor from August 1968 to August 1969. He received numerous awards including the Legion of Merit, the Purple Heart, and the Air Medal. At the end of his 2nd tour, he was released from active duty and began graduate school at Northern Arizona University.

He received his Master's degree in Guidance and Counseling in August 1970 and joined the university as a staff counselor. After a year, he entered the University of Utah Counseling Psychology PhD program. At the same time, the Army was anticipating difficulty with senior officers and NCOs when it transitioned from a conscript force to an all-volunteer force. The solution was to locate former combat arms officers and return them to active duty to receive doctoral degrees in behavioral sciences to help the Army move into an all-volunteer force. LTC Worthington graduated with a PhD in Counseling Psychology and a minor in Clinical Psychology in August 1973 and received a one-year post-doctoral fellowship in community psychology at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, TX. While in the Army Reserve and on active duty, he attended the Reserve Command and General Staff College, graduating in the fall of 1974. Assigned as the clinical psychologist at the Army Hospital at Ft. Polk, LA, he stayed a year and was then selected to become the first Psychology Consultant for the Army Health Services Command, a flagship command at Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio, TX. A year later, he was assigned as Chief of the Psychology Service at Brooke Army Medical Center, also at Ft. Sam Houston. His other positions at this time included working with Operation Homecoming and the Center for POW Studies, as well as becoming a pioneer researcher on the psychological adjustment of Vietnam veterans. Because of his considerable traveling to work with Army medical facilities and personnel all over the United States, he became an instrument rated pilot and the Army paid him to fly his own plane. This led to him becoming an aviation psychologist working with Army aviation. Because a lot of his work required management consulting within and outside the Army, he earned a Master's degree in Business Administration from Webster University in 1978. He ended his Army career as Chief of the Ft. Sam Houston Community Mental Health Service. He retired from the Army in October 1981. After his military service, he became a university business professor, a writer, and then a university writing professor, retiring in 1997. He died on May 9, 2023.