A paratrooper officer reflected upon his Vietnam service and the time he spent with Bob Hope and other celebrities there to entertain the troops serving there.

“I traveled the Bob Hope Show in 1966,” said retired Lt. Col. Charles Chamberlain, who was a communications officer assigned to Special Forces units. “I traveled with him for about three weeks. That was a hoot–that was really a hoot.”

Chamberlain said part of the Hope Vietnam tour was the filming of the NBC TV special “The Bob Hope Vietnam Christmas,” which featured Phyllis Diller, Joey Heatherton, Anita Bryant, Vic Damone, Jack Jones and Hope’s house band, Les Brown and the Band of Renown.

“When Bob Hope went over every Christmas back then he started years before,” he said. Hope made nine specials from Vietnam from 1964 to 1972, which were highlights from the stage show he hosted and his stand-up comedy routine.

“I was in 5th Group at the time. I came from the 10th Group in Germany, straight to Vietnam,” The Texas resident said.

“I went through the Special Warfare School in 1964, so that was, but I’ve never been back to Bragg since then,” he said. Fort Bragg was renamed to Fort Liberty June 2, 2023.

“I was only in the 2nd, the 10th and the 5th, and then back in those days for officers, it wasn’t conducive for your career to stay in Special Forces too long because the conventional big guys thought that this right bunch of ragtag guys,” he said.

Chamberlain said President John F. Kennedy’s patronage of the Special Forces was critical to its survival as an Army program and career.

“When Kennedy provided the funds when he saw what he had and he provided the funds, the whole attitude changed,” he said. “They eventually allowed the Green Berets to create their own—right now, they have their own branch.”

The former communications officer said Hope was always a big deal.

“Every place we went, one of my first duties was to go and take whatever switchboard were there to make a phone call all the way back to the White House, make sure I could get to the White House switchboard,” he said.

“Hope told me: ‘If anybody or general anybody wants to keep me from going where I want to go, I’ll call the president.’ Nobody messed with him, but was taken care of. He was so especially regarded,” he said.

The comic, who first entertained troops during the Second World War, was a high priority, he said. “They treated Bob Hope—they guarded him like a national treasure.”

Chamberlain came home November 1967

The Special Forces colonel said his military responsibilities included supporting Special Forces Soldiers working with the anti-Communist paramilitaries, trained and led by the Green Berets, mostly drawn from the Montagnard tribes, or the mountain people of South Vietnam’s Central Highlands.

These guerilla units fell under Mobile Strike Command, which they all called “Mike Force,” he said.

“We had seven mobile guerilla force companies, and I was a communications officer for those, so I was a member of the Mike Force,” he said.

“We actually commanded those were Montegnard guys–we loved those guys. They were fierce fighters,” the Vietnam veteran said.

“We equipped them and trained them, and if necessary, they’d jump out of airplanes and whatnot,” the colonel said. “We loved them because you’d never quit and run on you. They would always stay with you.”

Chamberlain said he and other Green Berets who served with them are still troubled about how the war ended and the U.S. failure to bring Montagnards to America after the war.

“We loved those guys and we were really upset with the way they ended the war,” he said.

“We wanted to Montagnards to home with us—bring them out of there, because the Vietnamese didn’t really like the Montagnards,” he said.

“It was like they were second-class or third-class citizens, but the government wouldn’t let us bring them out, just like the government wouldn’t let the dog handlers bring their dogs out,” the colonel said.

“I’m still mad about that. I’m still mad about Vietnam. We could have won that thing in less than a year,” he said. “They should have let us go do what we knew to do.”

Chamberlain said he came home in November 1967, right after a 30-day mission with a Pathfinder team and Mike Force paramilitaries to open a new FOB near the Cambodian border, part of an effort to block a major infiltration route used by the Viet Cong.

Chamberlain: I should have stayed in the Army 30 years

The colonel said he regrets leaving the Army, but at the time it seemed like the right decision.

“I should have stayed for 30,” he said. “I was on the oh-six list promotable and on the War College list.” The pay grade O-6 is full colonel.

“I called Branch and I said: “What are you going to do with me after the War College?’ They said: ‘Well, you’ve had two tours in Vietnam, and I commanded a battalion in Korea–so that was an unaccompanied tour—so, they said: ‘You got three short tours, you’re due for long tour, after War College, we’re going to send you to Europe and position you to command a brigade in some armored corps.’”

Chamberlain said he was stunned.

He told his detailer: “Look at my records. I’m a guy that runs through the jungles. I don’t like tanks. I don’t want to know anything about tanks—you’ve got a fish out of water and I’ve got two teenage sons.”

Chamberlain was on a speaker phone with his wife as the detailer explained that their sons would be put up in an American boarding high school, where they could come home on weekends and holidays.

“I looked at my wife: ‘Does that work for you?’ She said: ‘That does not work for me,’” he said.

The colonel said it was a terrible situation for him professionally, so he pleaded with the detailer: “Look at my record. I’m a master jumper and said: “I’ve been groomed to be a brigade commander at XXVIII Airborne Corps—that’s where you should send me.’ They said no.”

Instead of Europe, Chamberlain and his family finished out his career in Alexandria, Virginia, just a 20-minute drive from the detailer’s office at the military personnel center in the Hoffman Building.

“I should have driven to see the branch chief, I think I could have convinced him,” he said. “Let him look at me and then, tell me that you put the right peg in the right hole–you’ll have plenty of time to send me to sit on a long tour, but, now it’s not the right time for us.”

Chamberlain said instead of going face-to-face with the detailer, he resigned himself to his fate.

“I sat down and wrote my retirement letter and submitted it—of course, the future was tanks for the next 20 years.”