Christmas 1967: Remembering Bob Hope and Raquel Welch in Cu Chi Vietnam
I vividly remember Bob Hope coming to Cu Chi, Vietnam in December of 1967. I was with the 2nd Battalion 2/501st Airborne Infantry, 101st Airborne Division when he and his team of great personalities, including Raquel Welch, came to entertain us.
Bob was a man who put men in war as ease. He put hope (no pun intended) in all of our hearts that we would be home the next Christmas.
He was a welcome respite from the battlefield. May God bless him and the work he did to entertain our troops until the day that he passed over.
I also remember “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” a Christmas song written by the lyricist Kim Gannon and composer Walter Kent and recorded in 1943 by Bing Crosby. Originally written to honor soldiers overseas who longed to be home at Christmas time.
The film below is a composite of Bob Hope’s 1967 Vietnam tour for our men and women in the military produced by the U.S. Airforce:
Here’s Elvis Presley singing I’ll Be Home For Christmas
May God bless those soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who won’t be home for Christmas 2022. May He bless and keep them and their families safe from harm.
Bob Hope is looking down from heaven along with Bing Crosby and Elvis upon our nation. I wonder what they are seeing and saying, don’t you?
I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas!
©Dr. Rich Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.). All rights reserved.
“I was there. I saw your sons and your husbands, your brothers and your sweethearts. I saw how they worked, played, fought, and lived. I saw some of them die. I saw more courage, more good humor in the face of discomfort, more love in an era of hate and more devotion to duty than could exist under tyranny”.
Bob Hope (1944)
I saw this great man entertain us while stationed at Long Bien, at the Ben Hoa airbase in Dec 1965. I had just turned 18 & I felt like we had nothing to worry about having the Bob Hope Show up. Thanks for the memories Mr. Hope.