Posted by
EWRoss on Monday, October 19, 2009 7:00:00 AM
There's nothing like 3 hours
one-on-one in the back of a cargo plane in the middle of a Vietnam monsoon
with Jonathan Winters
to pump up a soldiers morale.
In the spring of 1967 comedian
Jonathan Winters headlined a USO tour to South Vietnam. One of his stops was
to the 2nd Brigade of the 9th Infantry Division's base camp at Dong Tam in the
Mekong Delta. Winters put on a hilarious evening show for the troops, of which
I was one. He had everyone in stitches. Mid-morning the next day a US Army
Caribou cargo plane was parked on the tarmac next to my small observation H-23
helicopter. Winters and his fellow entertainers were onboard awaiting takeoff
to his next destination. As I was walking to my doorless helo the clouds burst
and a torrent of rain began to fall. Sitting under the Plexiglas bubble of the
H-23 provided little cover. I was soaked to the bone.
I heard a voice call out, and I
looked toward the Caribou where I saw Winters waiving to me to get in out of
the rain. Once inside, Winters guided me forward in the aircraft to a place
away from the others. For the next three hours, wind and rain buffeted the
Caribou as if it were flying through it. Winters alternately talked with me and
entertained me in his typical style. I laughed and cried as he told me stories
about his own service in World War II. "I was a Marine on the only US aircraft
carrier not hit by a kamikaze." he told me, using hand gestures and
accents to make his point. Other than that, not once during the three hours did
he repeat any of the jokes and stories he had told the night before.
When the rain stopped and the tower
gave permission for waiting aircraft to take off, I thanked him, we shook
hands, and I returned to my aircraft and the war with a much appreciated
diversion from it. The contribution Winters, Bob Hope, and many others made to
troop morale in Vietnam
is beyond measure.
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