Bob Hope Christmas Show, Long Binh, 25 December 1970

Bob Hope's 1970 Christmas show, Long Binh

On 25 December 1970, Jim Garvin was one of four men from his platoon sent to the Bob Hope USO Christmas show at Long Binh -- the rest of Range Platoon, and most of D Company, spent Christmas in the field. Garvin had earned the trip in a roundabout way: his lieutenant felt he'd been wrongly punished over a booby-trap dispute at FSB Silver and arranged the detail with the CO.

The crowd filled a horseshoe stadium with the stage at the open end -- Garvin's first real sense of the scale of the American presence in Vietnam. Guests included Johnny Bench, Gloria Loring, Jennifer Hosten (the reigning Miss World), the Gold Diggers, and the Ding-a-Lings. A chopper formation trailing red and green Christmas smoke closed the show.