Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
8:23 | They tried to put fighter and test pilot Bob Titus in logistics, but he wasn't going to sit at a desk and order supplies. He managed to avoid that fate and went to his third war in Vietnam to test new planes in a combat situation. Once that was over, he extended with another unit and scored three MiG kills.
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The recruiter tried to put him in the Navy, but Bob Titus said he didn't care for the Navy, so the recruiter said OK, wise guy, you're going to the infantry. That was what he wanted. He became a paratrooper and joined the 82nd Airborne but the war ended before he saw combat.
He was studying aerospace engineering at Virginia Tech when he met an Air Force recruiter who offered him admission to flight training. Bob Titus was told he was too tall to be a fighter pilot but he became one anyway. He wanted to fly combat missions and he persisted until he was assigned to Korea.
After the Korean War, fighter pilot Bob Titus had an assignment ferrying planes to Europe for NATO. While he was stuck at a remote air base and bored, he was poking around in the office when he found out about test pilot school. He sent an application right away and he was accepted. Soon he was evaluating new planes and systems.
With over 550 combat missions, fighter and test pilot Bob Titus had the experience to take on several important jobs after his Vietnam experience. His last assignment was inspector general at NORAD in Colorado. When he was slated to go to Florida and then the Pentagon, he retired rather than leave the skiing.
