Sgt Grit
I saw your newsletter about going to the Bob Hope Show near DaNang in 1969. It was at Freedom Hill and I was there also. In fact I was a Squadron Photographer (First Marine Air Wing, MAG 11, VMA225 at the DaNang Airbase) and was sitting on the ground right in front of the stage. I took 600 pictures of the show and went again the next year to see his 1970 show and give him an album of the pictures I had taken the year before. Bob Hope was gracious enough to stand backstage with me and look at every page of the album with me that I had given him. He kept that album and it is now in his exhibit in the Library of Congress in Washington DC. It is a miracle story that is very meaningful to me and is my main memory of being a Marine (1967 – 1971). I was in Avionics on the A-6A Intruder and my specialty was the Auto Pilot on that plane but I was the Squadron Photographer as a hobby and so I would get a ticket to the show when Bob Hope came that year. I was making so much money selling the pictures I took that I extended for another tour to do another Bob Hope Show. The public opinion of the war had degraded so low between 1969 and 1970 that I couldn’t give my pictures away of the 1970 show.
But Bob Hope will always be a hero in my mind. His shows brought the warmth of humor to our hearts and he showed us what we were fighting for. The girls in his shows were representatives of our sweethearts or wives back home and that was what we were fighting for. Bob Hope brought that to us and his touching remarks at the end of the show made us feel proud to be an American, proud to be in the service, and proud to be a Marine. Bob Hope seemed to really understand and could share that deep understanding of what it was to be an American better than anyone I have ever known. He knew that bringing the girls for us to see was far beyond just having the girls in his show. He knew how much it would mean to us to see what we were fighting for and somehow laugh about being there at the same time. What an amazing man Bob Hope was. I’m so glad you got to see his show and you know what I’m trying to say about how wonderful it was to share with fellow servicemen as we watched his show about how great it was to be an American. The feelings Bob Hope gave us lasted long after he left and remain to this day. Yes Bob Hope will always be a hero in my mind.
Here is a link to my album in the Library of Congress from the show that you and I saw:
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/bobhope/pubserv.html
Semper Fidelis
Bill Gwin