Veteran Bob Neff has had God at his side
Robert “Bob” Malcolm Neff, a 28½-year veteran, was born February 18, 1934, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Two weeks later he moved to Virginia, Minnesota, with his adopted parents. His father was a physician. He had two brothers and three sisters, all of whom were adopted.
A letter from the adoption agency to his parents recorded the fact that he was breast fed for seven days. That in itself is not significant. However, Bob said, “I can’t say my parents were in prison, but that was the usual indication for a prison birth.”
Bob attended public school through junior high but went to Wheaton College Academy, a private school, for high school, graduating in 1953.
“Wheaton was a very good school,” Bob said. “I enjoyed it, but Wheaton was no snap. Their exams were not to parrot what they had said. They wanted you to think. Education has been very important to me.
“At that time the political football was universal military training. All male high school graduates had to spend two years in the military or similar service. I figured it had a lot of good in it because that gave them a chance to see what living by the rules was like.”
Bob entered active duty in the Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton, San Diego, directly out of high school.
“My good buddy and I used to take off together. ‘Let’s go to Duluth,’ I said. So to Duluth we went, chatting all the way. When we got there I pulled in to the county courthouse. Downstairs I walked into the Marine recruiter and said, “I want to join the Marines.”
He could have enlisted for two years, but they explained that if he went for at least three years he could get into better schools. He was trained in communications in which he learned Morse Code in the morning and typing in the afternoon.
“Just a tidbit,” Bob said. “My buddy and I were in a dry cleaners. You get to talking to each other in Morse Code because that’s what you’re studying. He asked me if he should ask the girl there for a date. She surprised us and came back in Morse Code.”
Bob always educated himself in whatever subject matter he was working in.
“I have been around the world. I have not been in every nation, but I spent a lot of time in Japan and the Philippines. I like to know what I’m suppose to be doing.” He explained, “It makes no sense being responsible for something if you don’t know what you’re writing about.
“I was eating dinner with a guy who was a specialist on the machine gun on the aircraft. He talked about the problems involved. The next day a full colonel called and said, ‘This morning on a certain aircraft, when they put the power to it, the machine gun fired one round. Why?’ The good Lord had arranged for me to have dinner with the guy the night before, and I could explain why that happened.”
The time spent in the Philippines was a special time for Bob, he said. He had a great experience with the church there. They had Sunday evening vesper service including a meal and singing.
“I made such good friends there. I learned a lot about prayer. I prayed that the TV set would catch on fire. And it did,” he said, and then he revealed the story behind the incident.
He was asked to teach an adult Bible class. On Saturday evening the guys who attended came in all excited. He was told that on Japanese television there was going to be a three-hour strip tease contest.
“What would bring me to pray that the TV set would catch on fire?” Bob said. “Moments like that reconfirmed the power of prayer.”
Up until about that time Bob said he had a fear of public speaking. But he said of his Bible teaching, “There are just certain things you have to talk about.” He walked 14 miles to attend this church of choice.
He was sent to a Naval six-week training on how to teach. Bob said that, on the first day he was required to talk for two minutes about himself. Critiquing the course, one officer said, “Sergeant Neff, I’ve never seen anyone so afraid of speaking. Your progress has been fantastic. This morning I called the Marine Corps office and asked if I could have you as one of the instructors of my class.”
“I guess I did make progress,” Bob remarked.
Bob remembered not many days ago about taking off in a C-plane, and the engine blew up over his head. He said the propeller had snapped, putting the plane out of balance. “It was a splash landing. There was no doubt God had his hand on me,” Bob said.
Bob has had harrowing experiences from the time he was young. He recalled a moment when he was very young. His mother had a 16mm camera with which she took a picture of him with half a broom stick chasing a bear out of their backyard.
A few years later, where they lived everyone had at least 100 feet of lakeshore. He was counting campfires one evening when he realized one fire wasn’t a campfire. It was an outboard motor. He got in his boat and went over to it. He pulled off his sweatshirt and wrapped it around the motor. It wasn’t enough to smother the fire, so he unfastened the motor and dumped it into the lake. Afterward, he said he thought, “Why was I brave enough to do that? It could have blown up at any moment. Not that I’ve always done things sensibly,” he added. “But as much as possible, I’m not going to let anybody get hurt.”
Bob likes to talk about God. He said of his coming to God, “1, 2, 3, 4, 5.” He said that his church had preaching brothers – different ones who would speak. On December 3, 1945 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) one of the speakers “had me on a spider web over hell,” he described. “He really got me, and I couldn’t wait any longer.”
Bob, a resident at New Horizons Care Center who plays the harmonica, loves music. In his last year of high school he sang bass in a quartet called Warriors for Christ. He started singing a song they sang, “Give the world a smile each day, helping someone on life’s way.” He said he likes to sing, and he likes the harmonica, which he taught himself to play. He also played the snare drum in school. He was nominated for all-state band, where he played first position, first snare.
Now at 93 years old, Bob shared the following he had written 15 years ago. “Romans 15:4, 13 says, ‘Through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. … May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.’
“As I am thinking tonight (6/28/09) about these verses, having lamented to Diane (his wife) this afternoon about my sullenness being caused by my feeling old, unhire-able, useless and having become devoid of hope, that in a strange way, being aware of hopelessness is, perhaps, when your hope is the strongest.”