"No doubt the funniest exploit I was involved in was dropping leaflets on the Bob Hope Christmas show at Cu Chi in 1969. Our company was assigned to provide perimeter security and air cover for the show, so none of our guys would get to see it. The night before, some enlisted men came to me with boxes of small white leaflets upon which they had written messages welcoming Bob Hope to Cu Chi. Three platoons had stayed up all night making these things, and they begged me to drop them on the show, since they knew I'd be up there. I told them it was closed airspace and you can't do that without getting into big trouble, but in a weak moment I let them talk me into it. Sure enough, in the middle of the show, I took a sharp turn, ignored the controller in my earphones, who wanted to know what I thought I was doing, and we dropped the leaflets. If you watch the videotape of that show, you can see Hope looking up as the leaflets came down. The next day, I was called in front of the CO, but he let me off when I explained why I had done it. In 1975, I was finishing my college degree at Saint Martin's in Olympia, Washington. Nobody could figure out who to get for a graduation speaker, so I suggested Bob Hope. Everyone said, "Great, you go get him." It took some time, working through his assistants, but I finally got him on the phone and explained that I was the guy who dropped the snow on his show at Cu Chi. "Why'd you do that?" he immediately asked. When I explained how I couldn't turn the troops down, he said, "Okay, I'll speak at your graduation." And he did. I was his escort the whole day, and he continued to pepper me with questions."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Stand-up comedians from the United StatesSingers from the United StatesPeople from LondonDancers from the United StatesActors from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Joe Finch, Our Vietnam Wars: As Told By 100 Veterans Who Served (Self-published, 2018) by William F. Brown (editor and contributing author), p. 219
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bob_Hope
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Bob Hope
Leslie Townes Hope, KBE, KC*SG, KSS (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003), best known as Bob Hope, was a British-American entertainer, having appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, on radio and television, films and in army concerts.
8 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Bob Hope →
Related Quotes
"Thanks to our brave allies: you gallant Russian bear, you British everywhere."
"I was on the way to my hotel, and I passed a hotel going in the opposite direction."
"I know I'm in England because this morning, my stomach got up two hours before I did and had a cup of tea! I've had s…"
"You mean like Democrats?"
"Bob Hope will go to the opening of a phone booth in a gas station in Anaheim, providing they have a camera there and …"
"For years, as I've said, Bob has worked hard for our family's sake to cut our traveling to a minimum. But there are s…"
"In his prime, the young comic walked onto a stage with the confidence of a man who owned it, and by the time he walke…"
"I never really had any aspirations to be an actor when I was young. I wanted to play the piano in a bar, to be the ol…"
"If I do decide one day to stop acting, I just hate the idea of people going: 'Oh, did you ever do anything else besid…"
"I don't really know how to act, I kind of wanted to somehow make it real, and one of the ways I've always thought mak…"