Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 2, 1995 TAG: 9509050063
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: HONOLULU LENGTH: Medium
Armed with jokes, Bob Hope made ``our boys'' laugh and forget about the carnage around them, if only for a few hours.
Since May 1941, when he and Bing Crosby put on a show at March Air Field in California, ``GI Bob'' has been entertaining the troops for more than half a century, in World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf, and at U.S. bases around the world.
With 10,000 veterans gathered in Hawaii to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, Hope came, too, to put on a show Friday night at the Waikiki Shell. It wouldn't be an end-of-the-war anniversary without him.
``The same troops? I don't know if it's safe to come back,'' Hope deadpanned Thursday.
At 92, Hope is slowing down, his hearing failing. Still, his memories are vivid and his eyes shine as he tells his war stories.
Like when he tried to enlist after the attack on Pearl Harbor, but couldn't because President Franklin D. Roosevelt had other plans for him and Bing Crosby.
``He asked us not to and said, `I think it would be better if you two just entertain, because you're very valuable that way,''' Hope recalled.
Or the time a soldier in a tank drove up to the stage where Hope was performing, popped out of the hatch and said to the comedian: ``OK, make me laugh.''
Hope did.
At each base, he tried to let the soldiers know they were remembered. They remembered him in return, as a March 1945 letter attests.
``I was stationed in Algiers when you and your crew were there in '43. At that time I hadn't been overseas very long, but just long enough to really begin to miss these United States,'' a soldier wrote. ``I'll never forget some of the thoughts that ran through my mind when you walked out on that throw together stage.
``I could see our living room at home, and my mother sitting by the radio laughing at one of your gags ... for a few seconds I was back home and that did me more good than anyone will ever know.''
One time Hope was asked by a woman to deliver a picture of a baby to its father, who had not yet seen the child.
``So I got there and I said, `Is Sam Schwartz in the audience? Come on up here,''' Hope said. ``I said, `I just met your wife at the airport, and she gave me the picture, and she asked me to give it to you.' And, of course, everyone in that audience just loved it. You know, that made me a hell of a hero.''
Writer John Steinbeck, covering the war for the New York Herald newspaper, once said of Hope:
``He gets laughter wherever he goes from men who need laughter. It is hard to overestimate the importance of this thing and the responsibility involved. It is impossible to see how he can do so much, can cover so much ground, can work so hard and be so effective. There's a man. There is really a man.''
by CNB