On May 6, 1941, Bob Hope performed his first USO show at March Field in California. The United Service Organization had been founded earlier that year to provide entertainment for the Armed Forces. Hope, who hoped to join the Navy after Pearl Harbor, was convinced by FDR to serve his country as an entertainer. It was a match made in Heaven. He would be the face of USO shows for the next 50 years. He headlined 57 tours. He entertained the troops in WWII, the Berlin Airlift, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Lebanon Civil War, the Iran-Iraq War, and the Persian Gulf War. His last tour was to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia for Operation Desert Shield. He was 87 years old. It was the Vietnam shows that are most remembered because they were shown on TV annually as a Christmas show from 1964-1972. The template of the shows had several features. Hope would do a monologue (twirling his golf club) that poked fun at the brass and the war situation. He always had sexy women like Connie Stevens, Ann-Margret, Joey Heatherton, and Raquel Welch. Hope would make sexist cracks that would not go over well today, but did with his audiences. Servicemen would be brought on stage to dance with the hottie. Other comedians and celebrities (his last show featured Johnny Bench) traded one-liners with Hope. Although never under fire, some of the shows were near the front lines and certainly not without some danger. But Hope and his troupes were totally committed. Once in the South Pacific in WWII, he gave a half hour show from a jeep for a platoon that had come in from the jungle too late for the show. Hope was one of the few celebrities who added Great American to their status. Congress declared him an “Honorary Veteran” in 1997. LBJ awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969. He is surely one of the most justified recipients.
Here are some of my favorites of his jokes in his shows:
“I met a GI who was going steady with his tattoo. And his buddies kept asking if she had a sister.”
“Working in a war zone is great for a comedian. You can always blame the bombs on the enemy.”
“Vietnam is a very democratic country – everyone gets to be president.”
“This is great golfing country. Even the runway has eighteen holes.”
“Contrary to what you’ve heard, I did not entertain the troops at Valley Forge.”
“The country is behind you – 50 percent.” (told in Vietnam)
“As we flew in they gave us a 21-gun salute. Three of them were ours.”
https://www.uso.org/stories/154-bob-hope-the-uso-s-one-man-morale-machine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Hope#USO_involvement
https://www.historynet.com/bob-hopes-vietnam-christmas-tours.htm
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