Bob Button is an award-winning writer and journalist and published author since age 12 when his first poem got into print. Since then he’s written for daily newspapers, international news syndicates, national magazines, and more recently aviation/space websites. Button joined the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1960 as a public affairs officer during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo man-in-space programs. He broadcast from Mission Control Center in Houston during missions, earning the title, “The Voice of Gemini.” In 2014 he collaborated with Jay Barbree of NBC-TV in Jay’s best-selling biography, Neil Armstrong, a Life of Flight (St. Martin’s Press). Button served in all four military branches, beginning at age 16 with the U.S. Navy during World War II. A Purple Heart Army veteran of the Korean War, he fought at the battles of Pork Chop Hill and Heartbreak Ridge. A Marine sergeant during Vietnam, Button taught close combat and long-range patrolling, earning Leatherneck magazine’s USMC instructor of the year award in 1957. He returned to the Army and retired in 1989 as an Infantry sergeant major. In the sixties Button flew Search and Rescue missions for the Civil Air Patrol. Later in his seventies he flew for the U. S Coast Guard Auxiliary for ten years. His flying over half a century earned him the FAA’s highest honor, The Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award.
