MENTONE – A helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War shared his experience through flight school, the war and afterward during Rotors over Mentone Saturday.
Brad Stockwell said after high school, he went into the Army. He went into flight school, which took nine months to get through. The program was called High School to Flight School. Sometimes people were “eliminated.” Sometimes people developed medical conditions and couldn’t continue with flight school or failed three tests. Stockwell passed flight school and was told he was being put into a helicopter.
He said those that graduated flight school received their warrant officer bar one day and the next day, they received their wings.
“They wanted to do that and not give us our wings before they made us officers and get our wings and decide to quit,” Stockwell said.

    A helicopter starts to land during Rotors Over Mentone Saturday. Photo by Jackie Gorski, Times-Union
  

About 40,000 people went through flight school during Vietnam.
Stockwell said pilots used Hueys for basic training.
He went to Vietnam in 1971 with the 1st Calvary Division and was put in a helicopter. The tour at that time was a year long.
He said soliders in World War II with Gen. George S. Patton had two choices: fight until they won or fight until they were killed. In Vietnam, they didn’t do that. Stockwell said he still had a lot of opinions about the war.
“We were there originally to stop the flow of Communism,” he said.
Stockwell also mentioned he spent Christmas Day in an ampitheater in Long Binh, Vietnam, to see Bob Hope’s USO show with 10,000 other men.
After being discharged, there were lots of men who wanted to fly helicopters after flying in the military, but couldn’t get jobs doing it in the civilian world, he said.
Stockwell said he initially did some flying on the side. He became a Seattle police officer in order to become a pilot for the department. He eventually quit and went to the Gulf of Mexico to become a helicopter pilot. He said during that job, he worked seven days on, seven days off, but he had to accept a lower paycheck from that of his pay as a police officer to do the job. He later worked in Saudi Arabia for 11 years.
Stockwell then shared how he got to speak at Rotors over Mentone.
He said his wife has Parkinson’s. He and his daughter watched a program about a prosecutor who had Parkinson’s who started boxing. A gym in Indianapolis was started for Parkinson’s patients.
In 2016, Stockwell and his daughter opened up their own gym for people who have Parkinson’s. One of the people that went to that gym was from Rochester and that man mentioned the Lawrence D. Bell Aircraft Museum in Mentone and Rotors over Mentone.
Stockwell said he always wondered who Bell was. He had heard the name before due to his experience with helicopters, but didn’t know anything about Bell himself.
He then visited Mentone and the museum and wanted to find out more about Bell. He then asked Marsha Scott, secretary of the museum, if he could speak at the event.
Also during Saturday’s event, select band members of Tippecanoe Valley High School played the national anthem and patriotic songs. One representative of American Legion Post 424 placed the flag. David Meredith, of the Mentone United Methodist Church, did the invocation.
All the veterans in attendance were recognized.