All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.
And now, your host for today's program, Dale Throneberry.
And welcome to Veterans Radio.
It is our Christmas program 2023.
Holy mackerel, how did we get to this point?
Yes, welcome.
Today's program we've got lined up for you actually is a replay of a program that we
did back in 2012.
So you don't think that Veterans Radio has been on that long, do you?
Right?
Well, you know, we are in our 20th year anyway to get back to this.
So back in December of 2012, we had Senior Vice President of the USO and Air Force Veteran
John Hansen on our program.
When we talk about, you know, the USO, its history, you know, what it's been doing in
the past and where it's going in the future.
And we also interspersed a number of different segments, I guess you could say, of Bob Hope,
because how can you do the USO without talking about Bob Hope, depending on your generation?
Of course, ours, you know, in the Vietnam generation, we got to see him because of course,
what he did in World War II was just, you know, Yeoman's duty.
I mean, can't think of how many years he's missed Christmas with his family.
But anyway, so that's what we're going to be highlighting today on our program.
We're also going to be, at the end of the program, we're going to be playing a little
medley by the US Army Band, a series of Christmas songs.
And I just think that you're going to really enjoy listening to this program.
And so I want you to make sure that you stay tuned.
You know, we can't do this program without your support, without the support of our sponsors.
So I want to make sure that I do thank them, especially at this time of year.
So first of all, I want to thank Legal Help for Veterans.
Legal Help for Veterans specializes in veterans disability claims.
Call Legal Help for Veterans at 800-69-34800, or you can go to their website, Legal Help
for Veterans.
The National Veterans Business Development Council, better known as NVBDC, the nation's
leading third party authority for certification of veteran-owned businesses.
For more information, go to their website, that's NVBDC.org, or give them a call at
888-237-8433.
The Charles S. Kettles VA Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
For more information, you can go to va.gov.
I also want to make sure that we don't forget our local organizations for their long, long
time support.
We've got the Irwin Press Corps and American Legion Post-46 and the Charles S. Kettles
Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 310, both of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
So as I mentioned, we're going to be replaying our program from December of 2012, where we're
talking with John Hansen from the USO, and we're going to be playing a number of segments
from some Bob Hope shows that were actually, I think, someone go back to World War II.
So sit back, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and I think you'll enjoy this.
We hope you'll enjoy this.
From all of us here at Veterans Radio, we wish you a very, very happy holiday season,
very merry Christmas, and we'll see you next year.
So here we go, Bob Hope.
What better topic to talk about than the USO?
For all of you who have been in the service, we all are familiar with the USO and their
programs that they put on bases around the world, some of their USO clubs and various
airports where we could stop and stay and have a relaxing time and get out of the hub
hub of a regular old airport.
So coming up, and just a little bit, we're going to have John Hansen, who is a senior
vice president and Air Force veteran, and he will be on talking about the history of the
USO and what it means to us and what it means to the country.
And I think it's very important that everybody out there, I know you're always looking for
organizations to support, and the USO is a great one, and they've been around for 70
years, and we're going to take a look at the history of the USO.
And I encourage you, if you've had the opportunity to see a USO show or stop at one of their
centers at the airports, I'm going to play a clip that I found on YouTube yesterday.
I'm fortunate you can't see the photographs that go along with it, but you'll be able
to find it if you want to at some point.
And it was put up there by an organization or a gentleman called Answer So Lucky, and
it runs about eight minutes, but it talks a little bit about the USO and of course the
iconic Bob Hope.
So Nina, let's hear this right now.
Bob Hope was not only a great comedian, he also was a great hero.
What he did for this country in times of crisis will always be remembered.
I just want you boys to see what you're fighting for, that's all.
I was on radio at NBC, and the producers said they want you at March Field next year.
I said, what's March Field?
They said, that's an Air Force base in Riverside.
I said, well, what do we do there?
You know, there's no war or anything.
He said, well, they want you down there.
That's a great audience.
There you are, Conan, you're down your knees with 12 suitcases on your back.
What are you going to do now?
I don't know, sense?
Wasting a position like this.
Get out the dice.
The audience was so great.
I said, wait a minute, how long is this going on?
And Christmas time, war started going to become dramatic.
We were at five straight years all around the world just doing troops, big troops.
What a great thing that ever happened to me.
Well, here I am in London.
But here we are on the USS Foxes.
Here I am in Alaska.
Colorado.
I'm in the USO.
What a great thing that ever happened to me.
Well, here I am in London.
But here we are on the USS Foxes.
Here I am in Alaska.
Colorado Springs.
Guam.
Tokyo.
Here we are in Insulik, Turkey.
Insulik.
That's a Turkish word meaning don't knock it at least Vietnam.
Uban.
Kacli.
Karat.
Achukuchi.
Udupan.
And Reindangdang.
Chung-ching, Chung-kang air base.
That voice will be here on the, where are we?
I was a little kid during the Second World War.
And these really vivid memories of sitting by the radio and listening to hope.
Some night.
Some park.
Some moon.
Some bench.
Some grass.
Some dew.
I do.
Well, it's something like finding out right away, you know.
The soldiers and sailors that he was entertaining were a real part of the show.
You heard these people who were starved for entertainment, starved for some feeling of
normal life again.
And you heard this tremendous outpouring of energy from them.
Bob Hope, when he came to entertain the troops, it made us, and it probably made other troops
feel the same way.
It made them forget for a little bit the killing and the dying that was taking place, even
though it was for just a short time.
What's the difference between you and an idiot?
Well, for one thing, you don't have a mustache.
That's a thrill for me.
All these men whistling in the street.
Yeah.
They've been in the jungle too long.
Hey, little girl, comb your hair, fix your makeup.
Soon he will open the door.
He was not interested in anything but pleasing those people.
When you went out on the stage, the acceptance was beyond a great audience, you know, that
was going to give you a standing ovation before you even opened your mouth.
Hey, Bob, am I standing in the right place?
Don't worry, honey, if you're not, they'll move the base.
I didn't know what I'm doing here, Bob.
I can't sing and I can't dance.
Don't.
Oh, just stand there.
They'll do the singing and dancing.
He kept the morale of that was what his job was.
Keep that morale for everybody.
I'll give you eight bars to make your fame and fortune.
Otherwise, it's back to the swamp.
Go.
I met Mr. Holt and he warned me to try a few bars of art Christmas.
He kind of stunned me with his reaction, but God, he said, you know, Crosby's got kids
everywhere.
I don't know what you guys did to get here, but let that be a lesson to you.
He brought a little bit of home 10,000 miles away and especially at Christmas time.
His specialist fourth, Brian H. O'Connell here.
Where is he?
Would you come up, please?
I went over to Vietnam.
Parks Mead, June or July of 65.
My wife was about six months pregnant.
Just before we got on the plane, his wife brought this over to us and here's a picture
of twins, his twins that he's never seen.
I had no idea what they looked like.
I just knew that they were twin boys.
I just want you to take a peek at these little kids.
It's the first time he's ever seen them.
Those are the boys.
My dad didn't like to talk about Vietnam much from his personal experiences, but one thing
dad did talk about from the war was receiving the picture on stage with Bob Holt.
Bob gave me the bread book.
I was proud, really proud of him and I thought it was great.
I appreciate it very much.
It was a great feeling.
The whole front row, the whole front section was always the guys that had like a plasma
drip going in.
And they would be in bed.
You knew that this was serious business and to hear them laugh.
You remember me, Roseberry's baby?
My face, Logner.
Yeah.
You know this isn't such a bad part.
What the hell is all that fire in you?
General, will you call off this stuff, this war while we're on clean?
He would walk into a hospital and only he could do this.
He would lead the gang.
It was five women and myself and Peter Leeds and Les Brown and we all big troop.
And he'd walk in there.
His opening remark was, don't get up to us.
You were seeing kids that had their arms and legs removed.
You were seeing guys that had the whole front of their bodies sewn up with great big staples.
They're thick.
I broke down a car ride.
And he took me aside and gave me an lecture.
This isn't why we're here.
They want lightness.
They want a joke.
They want you to pretend that nothing is wrong.
Many skirts are bigger than ever.
Even some of the fellas are wearing them.
Don't laugh if you'd have thought of it, you wouldn't be here.
I think one of the most emotional shows I ever played was when I played for the first Marine division in Povuva,
down in the South Pacific because we were playing on called Bonica.
And this fella flew over and said, could you possibly do an extra show for the first Marine division?
They never had a show and they would really love to see and they're going to invade Pellahue.
And so we flew over the next morning and you knew when you walked out there that you're playing for 15,000 kids,
that a lot of those guys you never see again.
And as it worked out, 60% of those kids were knocked off in this invasion of Pellahue.
And that was a segment about Bob Hope and the USO shows.
Actually, I've got a call on the line.
I've got Rob Winter calling from Celine, Michigan.
And Rob, you were called in because you went to a USO show.
Yeah, I was in Vietnam in 70 and 71.
I was in the Army and I got the luck of the draw.
We had in our company, I don't remember what the allocation was,
only three or four people, but we put our names and names in the hat and my name came up.
And so I was lucky enough to get to go to one of the famous Bob Hope Christmas shows.
So of course this happened in December of 1970.
And I was in the Marical Division, so I was in the 3rd Battal in 1st Infantry.
And what started out, the chopper took us back to our fire base,
which was Fire Support Base 411 or 411.
And from there then they flew us back to Chu Lai, which was our the Marical headquarters.
Well, I think that was the point, what started there on the way to Da Nang,
where the USO show was being held, which was about a three hour ride about 90 miles up Highway 1.
We had all been stripped of our weapons.
And this was probably the first time for all the guys in this huge convoy that we were without weapons.
And it was kind of, we all kind of felt naked.
I'm sure.
But anyhow, we got trucked up.
I guess one of the interesting things too along the way, in Vietnam there were no, what do you want to call, highway rest stops.
So what would happen, they would stop the whole convoy and everyone would get out and literally go to the side of the road.
And there was, as far as you can see, both directions were GIs.
You can't forget that picture.
I don't know.
But anyhow, we got up there.
And this show was, I remember a couple things.
Of course the show had Bob Hope, just like you were playing in the clips, some of his jokes.
But he had Ursula Andrus, who of course had been very famous for the Bond movie, the Dr. No Bond movie.
Lola Filana, who was a dancer.
Gloria Loring, who was a good singer at the time.
He had, I think it was Jennifer Hosting, who was Miss World anyhow, 1970.
Johnny Bench was also there, a baseball player, and of course Les Brown and his band of her own.
But I think, myself, what I think most of the guys truly liked the best was the Gold Diggers group that he brought along.
If people don't know, of course this was the, you know, right at the end of the 60s, 70s, and they were all in their hip huggers, go-go boots.
You know, very tight, showing a lot of leg.
And I think everybody thought, you know, because they were, for a lot of the guys, it's the first time they've truly seen an American girl for, you know, for a long time.
And I think they were the hit of the show, if you want to know the truth.
At least that was my perspective.
Well, Rob, what did the Bob Hope show mean to you, and looking back at it?
Well, of course, for me it was a, you know, a great, great break, you know, a couple days.
Like I said, it was scary, both going and coming, because we were vulnerable, but luckily we weren't attacked.
They did have a lot of, they had some helicopter cover on the convoy.
But the show itself was morale.
I mean, it was, I mean, all the guys there, it was, you know, just terrific to see those people coming out to, you know, support the troops.
And, you know, giving their time, so, you know, meant a lot.
Well, Rob, I want to thank you very much for calling in and have a very Merry Christmas this year, too.
Okay.
Same to you.
And everyone at Veterans Radio.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
We're going to take a break.
And when we get back, we're going to have John Hansen from the USO on to talk about the history of the USO and what they've did in the past and what they're doing today.
You're listening to Veterans Radio.
And that, of course, was the Andrew Sisters for those of us that are old enough to remember.
And I was trying to come up with some, some tunes for the current USO tours.
And unfortunately I got sidetracked as I normally do when I'm trying to pick music of songs that I heard when I was in the service or when I was growing up.
And my dad would talk about the USO shows.
And unfortunately I didn't get to go to the USO that was in Long Bend in 1969.
I was working that day and we were flying, actually we flew over or near until we were told by Air Traffic Control to get out of the area.
And it was an amazing site with probably 20,000 GIs down in this bowl.
And down in the middle of it was this little tiny stage and you could see just these little people running around.
And I was able to find some of that on YouTube.
And for those of you that are really interested in looking at some of these older programs, YouTube is a great source for the information.
They've got a lot of clips of Bob Hope. They have a lot of clips of today's USO shows.
So I would encourage you to do that, but not yet.
And right now coming on to the Veterans Radio program is John Hansen.
And John is a senior executive with the USO organization and John, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Thank you, Dale. Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas to you and thank you so much for your organization and what they do for the troops that are active duty.
And of course what they do for us that look back at this and just can't thank you, the USO, enough for what you did over in Vietnam, in my case, all over the world.
So tell me a little bit about how the USO came about.
The USO was created in early 1941.
In February of 1941, President Roosevelt combined the operations of six nonprofit organizations that had been, that health troops did morale work in World War I.
And he said his thought was it would be better if they coordinated their activities.
If you look at the USO logo, you'll see six stars and that is sort of our salute to those six founding organizations that were pulled together.
And the whole idea was that the military was expanding, bases were opening all over the country, and there needed to be a coordinated effort to provide morale services and recreational activities for troops at these bases to keep them occupied when they weren't in training.
Well, you know, I'm stuttering here because I'm just fascinated about the whole USO thing and how they got started.
We heard in the clip that I played that Bob Hope got started actually before World War II began when he was asked to go to camp in California.
He went to put us now on March Air Force Base, on March Field.
And the story was he really sort of fought it.
And he said, well, I think we just bring some troops to the studio. And his producer said, no, you really need to go out there.
And he discovered that there was a great audience that he hadn't even anticipated and it started his activities.
He was on the road nonstop during the war and as we all know, even afterwards, he did USO tours up through the First Gulf War.
Well, now Bob Hope, of course, wasn't the only one that was going around the world putting on these programs.
You also had programs going on in the states with some of these things called the Stage Door Cantines.
Can you tell me a little bit about those?
Yeah, the Stage Door Cantines were actually started, I think, by John Garfield and Betty Davis as an effort for Hollywood to get involved in the war effort.
And the first troops stationed around the country would go to these, before USO clubs were at these locations,
they would go to these locations and be served a meal, there'd be some dancing, some entertainment,
and they'd happen to be just as likely to be weighted on by a celebrity.
My father is a World War II veteran who was in San Francisco.
And it's interesting, the one memory that stood out for him during the war was being served a sandwich by Sophie Tucker at the USO in San Francisco.
It means a lot for these troops still, for celebrities.
Somebody, as they say, who doesn't have to be here to show up and do something on their own, do something nice.
I don't think that many people are really aware of how many entertainers have been going on USO tours over the last 70 years, but even up till today.
Can you think of some of the entertainers that have been in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Well, Robin Williams and Lewis Black, Kid Rock, is probably one of the reasons you didn't want to pick any music.
Kelly Pickler, the country singer, just finished her 60 USO tour this week. She got back on Tuesday from Afghanistan.
Trace Atkins has gone for us a number of times.
Toby Keith goes every spring for us and he insists that while he doesn't mind doing large shows at a large basis,
he won't go unless he can go to some forward operating basis. So we have to engineer a tour to make sure that he gets to some really small locations.
He takes him and his guitarists out to entertain troops. Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders are on tour now.
They've been going on tour since Vietnam, especially this time of year.
They have been going to Japan and Korea this year. They're going to the Persian Gulf area.
We've run the gamut and we're delighted that Celebrity Still Step Up Gary Sinise has gone around the world for us.
I don't know how many times. Taking either going by himself just to talk to troops or taking the Lieutenant Dan Band with him.
It's a big roster.
I just think it's amazing and I want people to really understand that these people are volunteering to go over there.
In fact, one of the clips that I was listening to with Bob Hope, he said he went back and asked him to go again.
I said, okay. He went off and did these shows.
I'm always amazed at the programs that they put on and the reception that they got and that he gave up his Christmas for 40 years to put on these programs.
Many of these people today are following in those footsteps.
If we look at the USO during World War II and what they did, of course, traveling around the world for those four years, what happened to the USO after World War II?
Well, in 1947, as the military was being paired back, Harry Truman gave the USO an honorable discharge and thanked the USO for its services.
Over the next couple of years, the USO wound down its activities around the world until 1950.
When the Korean War started, the USO was once again asked to do what it had done in World War II and we've been going strong ever since.
In Korea, of course, we had a flyer that I sent around.
I found a picture of Marilyn Monroe and found out that she had gone to Korea a couple of times.
Of course, the entertainers and Bob Hope, of course, went to Korea.
I had an email from one of our listeners that said that he had seen Bob Hope in Korea and it just meant so much to him to see the program.
Being all these American guys that are overseas and Bob Hope brings over all these young American women and they say, oh, this is what you're fighting for.
It's kind of interesting.
Marilyn Monroe went to Korea and she and Joe DiMaggio were in Japan and she decided that she wanted to go to Korea and went over there.
She came back. The story is that she said, Joe, you can't imagine what it's like to have thousands of people yelling your name.
And he said, oh, yes, I can.
I would say so. It's probably a little bit of different experience for most of the movie people anyway to have people yelling and screaming your name out.
It was amazing when I was listening to these clips.
And again, I encourage people, if you want to find out more about some of these shows that the USO put on, you can find them, of course.
But when I was editing them out, I would edit out sometimes two and three minutes of the troops just cheering just because.
And that hasn't changed.
Those shows, and your audience needs to understand, one thing that they do know about the USO is probably our entertainment tours.
And it's about 10% of what we do. It's a huge 10%.
And it's extraordinarily important.
People today in Afghanistan at this time of year, we take a tour over there.
They'll wait for three or four hours in the snow and sit through a two or three hour show.
It means that much to them.
And the response is exactly the same.
It's noisy. It's boisterous.
And it's one reason that once we get a performer to go on a tour, we don't have trouble recruiting that performer again.
Well, I guess here's a question.
I come up with, what about security for these people?
That's kind of, you know, the guy called in, Robbie, is saying, you know, they took us in there.
Of course, they don't want us to bring our weapons into the show.
Well, now they do.
Okay.
The weapons are all cleared.
But the, Robin Williams said that the most sobering event occasionally ever happened was when he walked out into, I think, Iraq and the whole front row was armed.
He said, there's an incentive to do well.
I'm going to say it's not a program that you know, pardon the pun. You don't want to bomb at that one.
That's for sure.
You mentioned that the entertainment portion of the USO is only 10% of what you really do.
We had about three minutes, so we're going to take another break, John.
But give me some of the other activities that the USO is involved with.
So we operate at 160 locations around the world.
You mentioned in your run-up the USO centers at airports.
We have USO centers at the major airports in the United States.
We also have them around the world.
We have nine USO centers in Afghanistan.
That's where most of our traffic is right now.
Those centers get about between eight and nine million visits a year from troops and family members.
And they're important connections back home for troops and for families that are stationed overseas.
So the biggest part of what we do happens at our USO centers around the world.
We'll be opening a new one in just a few months in Nashville and we'll talk a little later about a big project that we're putting on in the Washington, D.C. area at a couple of military hospitals.
Okay. In these last two minutes, I'm just going to read an email that I got from Al Wood.
Al Wood is an Australian.
He was in Vietnam with the Australian military.
He said that after a recent visit to Washington, D.C. for the 30th anniversary of the Wall,
one more gem awaited us as we departed Dellis International Airport for home.
On arrival off the coach from the city, we passed a sign to a USO lounge, caught my eye,
and I fell deep back into my memory and I had been into a USO club in Vung Tau, South Vietnam, way back in 1969.
So once we leave the war luggage, we had some three hours to kill,
and I went back and asked if an Allied Forces veteran in Vietnam was eligible to go.
And of course, when I showed them some idea that prove I was a veteran, they manning the lounge.
They said, welcome us to come in with open arms and had short beat the heck out of sitting in the departure lounge.
So there was a fridge full of beverages, a microwave, and offer with any range of frozen meals, coffee, lounge chairs, TV,
quiet room with beds therein to nap if necessary.
And internet, PCs, and telephone calls to anywhere in the world were offered.
All of this at no charge.
Priority security check-in was also given to us, and he said that they later found chocolate sweets stuffed into the jacket pockets on their flight home.
And he just wanted to say, apparently this USO facility is also offered at many other airports across the USA.
It should be kept in mind, the ladies were there, were so hospitable and welcoming to Barbara and his wife, Barbara,
says we were very impressed. Thank you very much, he says.
So that's a great story. Thank you for sharing that.
And I think that that's just the way that the USO is.
We're going to be coming up and taking a break here in a minute, John.
I'm going to play another little segment after this break of one of the Bob Hope shows where he's talking with Nguyen Cao Keeve,
or those of you that were in Vietnam, you'll recognize that, but I think it's important that you listen.
So we'll be right back. You're listening to Veterans Radio.
The Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in combat, given a member of the Armed Forces of the United States.
There have been over 3,400 recipients of the nation's highest award. This is one of them.
First Lieutenant Jack Jacobs, although seriously wounded, made repeated trips across an open rice paddy,
evacuating wounded and their weapons. Details after this.
As a veteran of Iraq or Afghanistan, joining IAVA.org really helps in the transition home.
It's a network of OIF and OEF vets like me who've got your back here, just like we did over there.
That means when you need help navigating the GI Bill, we've got your back.
And when you're dealing with the transition home, we've got your back.
Or when you just want someone to share stories with, we've got your back.
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America is there for you.
Join our community at IAVA.org. We've got your back.
Brought to you by IAVA and the Ad Council.
Jacobs served as an assistant battalion advisor in Kien Phong Province, Republic of Vietnam.
The battalion was advancing when it came under intense heavy machine gun and mortar fire.
Jacobs called for and directed air strikes on enemy positions.
Due to the intensity of the enemy fire and heavy casualties to the command group, including the company commander,
the attack stopped and the friendly troops became disorganized.
Wounded by mortar fragments, Jacobs assumed command of the company, ordered a withdrawal from the exposed position,
and established a defensive perimeter.
Despite heavy bleeding from head wounds that impaired his vision,
Jacobs returned under intense fire to evacuate a seriously wounded advisor to safety,
where he administered life-saving first aid.
He then returned through heavy automatic weapons fire to evacuate the wounded company commander.
Jacobs made repeated trips across the fire-swept open-race patties,
evacuating wounded and their weapons.
On three separate occasions, Jacobs drove off Viet Cong squads who were searching for Allied wounded and weapons,
single-handedly killing three and wounding several others.
His actions saved the lives of a U.S. advisor and 13 Allied soldiers.
The Medal of Honor series is a production of Veterans' Radio.
The war began for two years and I got the calling.
I got the calling to join the service and support the boys over there.
Thousands of American troops have come home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
suffering the effects of post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries.
I never thought that I would have PTSD.
I thought that I had enough open skills.
I don't think anybody who goes into combat could ever honestly say that they're not different when they come home.
What you take as a simple thing is not so simple for me anymore.
I'm going to have my good days and my bad days and I really don't like those bad days.
I would say to those people that are out there, don't brush this aside and don't count us out.
Help the USO support these troops and their families.
Donate today at GiveUSO.org.
The wounds are invisible. The stories are real.
Here's the show I still don't believe. The largest GI audience I ever played.
The nicest Christmas present we ever had. Some say 30,000, some say 28,000.
You come and go and grab them before I leave the single one.
I just want to tell you it's great to be back here in General Westmoreland's ranch.
General Westmoreland went to see the president. I guess it didn't work out. He's back.
And his face is loaded with brass. One PFC spent his whole tour of duty trying to salute his way out of the washroom.
They don't have this many stars at the Academy Awards and there's just as much jealousy.
I'm not enough about my problem. Now Vietnam is less than half the size of California in the same shape.
So why doesn't Ronald Reagan come over here and straighten the whole thing out?
This is Christmas Day. I'm telling you it's a wonderful thing here in Vietnam and there's a great holiday spirit.
I'm telling you, a perfect stranger handed me a gift beautifully wrapped. I can't get over the way he tied the fuse into a bowl.
Vietnam is the only place in the world where you can get a purple heart opening your Christmas presents.
And Santa's afraid to come to Vietnam. Last year he only got as far as the first hole when he was picked up by the MPs.
After the show, the man, all four stars, General Westmore, came up on stage.
Bob, I want to thank you and your talented troupe for a wonderful show.
There's a very distinguished gentleman in the audience who has seen Bob Shaw for four years.
At this time, I would like to introduce the Vice President of the Republic of Vietnam, Nguyen Cao Kee.
I would like to take this opportunity to express to all my fellow fighters on behalf of my people, my country, our gratitude.
We know how big your sacrifice, we know how big your dedication.
I'm sure the generation of Vietnamese today and those to come will remember you.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
We're back on Veterans Radio and that was a Bob Hope show in Long Ben.
I just thought it was interesting for those of you out there who wondered how the Vietnamese felt about our true speed.
I liked that comment. It made me feel good when I heard that from Nguyen Cao Kee.
We're talking with John Hansen, who is the Senior Vice President of the USO and is an Air Force veteran himself.
John, we were talking earlier not only about what the entertainers do and what the facilities are that the USO provides around the world,
but what else is the USO doing to help Americans veterans?
Over the past couple of years, we've started a project we call Operation Enduring Care.
We realized that one of the USO's great traditions was to be at military hospitals around the world.
We're actually with these troops today when they're wounded in Afghanistan.
We're at Kandahar at the big hospital and at Bagram. We're at the combat stress clinics around Afghanistan.
When the troops come back through Germany and stop at Landstuhl, we have a USO center that is part of the Landstuhl Army Hospital there
that provides a break not only for the people who are in the hospital, but for the troops caregivers and for the medical personnel there.
We have been operating at military hospitals since the end of the Second World War, but we wanted to ramp up that activity.
In about five weeks, we will open the first of our Warrior and Family Centers.
Two of them we're building now. One, the first will be at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, just south of Washington.
The second one will be built next year at the new Walter Reed Military Facility in Bethesda, Maryland.
These centers will be very large, the largest USO centers in the world.
What's more important than how big they are is that we think they'll be offering some hope.
Right now, troops that any of us who've ever been in the hospital know that after three or four days, the hospital wants you out and you want out.
It's really unusual to stay at a hospital for a long time.
An amputee at Walter Reed, for example, is there for an average of 18 months.
That amputee's world is pretty much his or her hospital room, the rehabilitation facility, and whatever surgical suite he or she may have to go to.
We wanted to provide a place not just for the troops to go during their recuperation, but also for families to begin the process of starting their lives for what comes after the military.
We'll have continuing education, a place to watch movies, a place for kids to play.
There'll be kitchens there so they can prepare home-cooked meals.
There won't be residential facilities, but there'll be areas of respite, a place to deal with what is sometimes an enemy none of them anticipated, which is despair.
Thanks to the generosity of our donors and some great corporations, we'll open the first center at Fort Belvoir in early February.
The second one will be built and completed, we hope, by the end of 2013.
Wow, make sure you let us know about that because that sounds like a great opportunity to do a program about what the USO is doing in addition to providing entertainment for our troops.
Well, these centers are in the middle of a campus of where troops are recovering.
You were generous enough to air a USO PSA about the invisible wounds of war, and we're working closely with the National Intrepid Center of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injury to make sure that we can add whatever value we can to the programs they offer,
whether it's art therapy, a place to put on a program. We work cooperatively with a lot of great nonprofits, and we're proud to do that.
And this is our step into making sure that troops, wounded ill and injured troops and their families have a place to recover and to get started, to look down the road and take on the challenges when they go home.
Well, I certainly appreciate what the USO is doing.
And also to talk a little bit more about how we, as private citizens now, can help the USO. What do we need to do? Is the USO a government agency?
Never has been, and it will shock no one that after the USO was formed during World War II, the War Department decided it was a great target of opportunity. And President Roosevelt said that if it is not supported by the American public, it doesn't deserve to exist.
And so we have been a private not-for-profit organization since our founding, and several government studies afterwards said that if there weren't a USO, they have to create one.
We have been, we're supported by millions of individual donors and dozens of really great American corporations who help us do what we do.
Well, we're going to, coming up on a break here in a couple of minutes, John, and then we're going to come back and we're going to talk about some of the other things that the USO does and how people can donate money to help out the USO.
I think it's such a valuable resource for us all to support. I mean, there are so many different organizations out there, and it sounds as though the USO is sort of acting like a clearinghouse with some of the other great organizations that are out there too.
We work cooperatively with some really great nonprofits and add value, we add value to each other.
You're listening to Veterans Radio and we'll be right back after this.
How lovely it was. Thanks for the memory of Shubhurt Sarane, little things of Jade, and traffic jams and anagrams and bills we never paid. How lovely it was.
We who could laugh over big things.
We have many other entertainers who are out there. One of the ones I always hear about is Gary Sinise. Can you tell me a little bit about his involvement?
Gary is a great guy. He obviously, his experience in Forest Gump got him interested in military service. He's got a number of family members who served and he gives his brother, served during Vietnam.
You might not know that he was very active in Chicago, in his hometown, in Veterans issues. Early in this war, we asked him to go on our first USO tour to Iraq. We haven't been able to stop him since.
He plays bass in a rock and roll band that he's called the Lieutenant Dan Band. We've taken that band around the world as well to entertain troops and family members.
He's one of the most generous people in the business and we'll do just about anything we ask if he's available. He's a great guy.
We certainly here at Veterans Radio appreciate what Gary does, not only for the USO, but how he has supported veterans all along. I just think it's wonderful.
He was one of the speakers at the Disabled Veterans for Life Memorial groundbreaking a year or so ago. He's been a big supporter of that memorial. He's a veteran's friend and he's a friend of troops and families.
There are many more like him. I can't even go through all the names and I'm sure you couldn't either.
We were talking when I was looking at the USO website, which is uso.org. You can go on there and make a donation still in time for Christmas.
But you had an interesting thing on your site about that you can give money and different denominations for different gifts for veterans. Could you talk just briefly about that?
I think you're talking about the USO Wishbook. We started it November of last year. It's an online alternative giving catalog and it gives donors an opportunity to give symbolically gifts and a number of price points,
including this year we added some gifts for wounded warriors. For $60 for example you can provide a flight home comfort kit that does blankets, air bling pillows, those kinds of things.
We've got gifts there that will help troops write a resume, get some job counseling, or send a military kit to camp. These are opportunities for people to give to the USO but to target their gift to something that's meaningful to them.
These are virtual gifts and we talk to our troops and our families all year long to find out what's important to them and we try to make that happen.
I thought that was a wonderful program when I saw that. The other thing I know you can do is that you can make donations in honor of somebody.
You can make a gift in honor of a family member, someone who's longer with us. If it's for a family member they'll get a card that will let them know that somebody has donated to the USO in their honor.
That's how I got involved. John I want to thank you so very much for being on Veterans Radio today and if there's anything that we can ever do to help out the USO, don't hesitate to give us a call and we'll be there to help you as much as possible.
Well, Dadele we appreciate the opportunity to be with you and wish all your listeners the best for the holidays and the new year. We'll be talking with you soon.
Absolutely. Thank you very much and a Merry Christmas to you and yours.
And to you. Bye bye.
All right folks that's the USO and we all are familiar with the USO and we're not going to close the program now but I've got one more thing that I want to play for me as a clip from one of the Bob Hope programs.
And we're going to play that right now and then we're going to come back and we're going to end up the program at that point. So here we go.
At the end of the show we would traditionally sing Silent Night.
It's a holiday season. You're away from home, a long way away from home. And they begin singing Silent Night and the entire audience chimes in.
And by the time you're singing the last few frames, most men, and we were men men, had tears rolling down their eyes.
And all you could hear were people crying. They wanted to dry our eyes and to play.
It was beautiful and it was happy and it was very sad at the same time.
There was this entire audience of mostly men just in tears and of course we were all in tears. And I will never forget that moment. Every single show.
Have a merry Christmas and God bless you. Bye.
We're so joyous and we laugh till we cry.
If there were these guys, maybe a number of them were going to go die. We're all laughing together. That's a real service.
In a lot of ways it's probably the last performance I've ever seen. In that regard, it's about the man.
He's the one of a kind. He's a saint and if he isn't, he should be. God bless Bob Hope.
God bless Bob Hope and God bless all of the people that work with the USO. And again, I encourage you to please go to their website, uso.org, and donate today.
They can use the funds. We've asked these men and women to go overseas numerous times and many of them have missed holidays with their families.
And they're friends. And this is one way that we can support them. And the USO does a great job.
And I'm not just chilling just for the USO. There are many other great organizations out there.
And this is the time of year when they need your contributions. They need your donations to help out these men and women.
Because without these men and women, many of us wouldn't have the opportunity of being here.
And our lives would probably be a lot different if we were to not support these organizations. I think what was interesting in talking with John was that the USO was an organization that strictly volunteers.
And as President Roosevelt said, well, if the American people aren't going to support an organization like this, then what's the point?
Well, you know, we've got a lot of people, men and women out there that are defending us every single day. And it's only it's less than 1% of our population.
And, you know, we've all heard about those 1%ers. Well, there's 99% of us that are not involved with the military any longer.
And it's up to us to support these men and women. And I'm hoping that you will do that with your contributions to organizations like the USO and some of the other ones that are out there.
This is a pretty emotional program. I didn't realize that some of these things were better to get to me like they always do.
But we want to thank all of you out there for your support of Veterans Radio and we are looking forward to another new year coming up.
On behalf of all of us here at Veterans Radio, Bob, Dale, Nina and Maria, in the control room, we want to wish all of you a very, very merry Christmas and a happy new year and peace on earth to all of you.
Mmm.
Let yourself up, merry new Christmas. Let your heart be light.
From now on our troubles will be out of sight.
Have yourself a merry new Christmas. Make the you'll tight game.
From now on our troubles will be miles away.
Here we are as in olden days. Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are due to us. Gather near to us once more.
From the years we all will be together. If the fates alone.
Hang a shining star upon the highest bone. And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.
Mmm.
From the years we all will be together. If the fates alone.
Hang a shining star upon the highest bone.
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.
Mmm.
Thank you.