In Vietnam, Rocky Angone flew aboard helicopters and never ventured far without a machine gun, rifle or combat knife.

Today, his favorite vehicle is his Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He never goes anywhere without his Bible.

"It's been a long, hard ride," he said.

Angone came home from Vietnam in 1969 physically unharmed but psychologically damaged and, by his own description, "a mess." He was angry and misguided, enraged at the world. In retrospect, he views the period as a downward spiral that lasted 20 years.

He found comfort and, finally, direction through his faith. He's on a mission now to do the same for others.

Angone said he was never diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, largely because "I would never admit that I had a problem. I thought that everyone else was 'milking' the system, and my pride would not let me admit that I was on the verge of being a nut case.

"It was only after two broken marriages, more jobs than you can count on both hands, an inner rage that I could not control, and the love and urging of friends that I finally realized I needed help," he said. "I found peace through Christ."

Known as "Reverend Rock," Angone answered a calling to minister to military veterans -- not just those from the Vietnam era but those who have served in more recent conflicts including Iraq and Afghanistan -- and spends his free time trying to help those thrashing through the same emotional swamp he found himself in.

"Unfortunately I know veterans who were angry and bitter and died with all that stuff in them and that's sad," said Angone, 63, who lives in Chester. "That's something I'd like to help change. I want to reach out to these vets . . . and bring these veterans to peace through Christ."

Angone is local outpost leader for Pointman International Ministries, an organization run by veterans for veterans in order to offer spiritual healing from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Most of his work with veterans is conducted in one-on-one settings in coffee shops or in living rooms. He goes wherever the veteran is comfortable. The pastoring work is purely a free, volunteer effort; Angone earns his living working as a business manager at South Richmond Harley-Davidson.

The bike connection is critical to his spiritual outreach since many veterans ride bikes, Angone said. Evidence of that is Rolling Thunder, a nonprofit organization with more than 80 chapters nationwide whose members are primarily veterans and mostly motorcycle riders. Rolling Thunder's 21st annual Ride for Freedom on Memorial Day weekend in Washington, to honor war veterans, drew an estimated 350,000 participants and spectators.

"Riding a Harley has a mystique, that Americana, that macho kind of image, which I desperately need," Angone said with a laugh. He's 5 feet 7, 150 pounds.

"You walk up to [a biker] and start preaching to them, they're going to walk away or smack you. You've got to prove you're one of them. That's what the bike does. It's been a tremendous asset. It opens a lot of doors."

Opening that door is difficult for many. It wasn't easy for Angone.

He served in Vietnam in 1968-69 with the Air Cavalry Troop of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. As a crew chief and door gunner, he made sure the unit's helicopter gunships were fueled, armed and ready to fly, and then he flew on them, sitting behind a machine gun. He recalls flying night missions along rivers searching for and firing on the Viet Cong, and ferrying wounded personnel to aid stations.

"When you go into a combat situation, it's kill or be killed," Angone said. "All of a sudden, everything starts to change. Slowly, you harden."

Friends died; grief was buried. When he and others came home, they were not greeted with open arms by American society, which largely had turned against the war. He, like others, bottled up much of what he saw and felt, the nightmarish memories brought to the surface only by certain sounds or smells.

It took years for Angone to truly understand he needed help. He turned to Bob Bruton, a pastor and former Army captain in Vietnam. In the early 1980s, Bruton had started a small church in an old nightclub building behind a furniture store on Hull Street, and he knew precisely what Angone was going through because of his background.

"If you've never been in a war, never been shot at, never seen people killed violently including people you cared about; haven't gone through those kinds of experiences, it's pretty hard to empathize with somebody who has," Bruton said.

"They've seen things and done things that nobody wants to remember, but you can't completely forget so it destroys your peace," said Bruton, who still lives in Chesterfield County and works, along with his wife, Patricia, as a teaching missionary in countries in Eastern Europe. "People start searching to regain that peace in a whole lot of places."

Those places include a lot of troublesome destinations: alcohol, drugs, promiscuity.

Faith was the place Angone finally determined he needed to be. Bruton -- along with others such as the Rev. Wayne Mancari, senior pastor at Cornerstone Assembly of God, and the Rev. Jean Trainer, founder of Dominion Counseling and Training Center -- helped him get there.

"We talked an awful lot," said Bruton, who had gone through similar difficulty coming home before immersing himself in his ministry. "Like myself, he decided to really commit himself to the Lord. That's when he began to change.

"What he's doing now through Pointman is an outgrowth of his own personal journey of faith. He's trying to share with others who may still be struggling to find their own version of peace."

To expand Pointman's outreach, Angone's looking for other like-minded vets who, as he put it, "have the same heart for veterans" and would be willing to serve as spiritual counselors.

"Most of us," he said, "all we needed was someone to listen."

Contact Bill Lohmann at (804) 649-6639 or wlohmann@timesdispatch.com.