I knew I had these around the place somewhere. Then I remembered that I had taken them in 35mm slide format. I dug out the slides and had them scanned professionally. Won't use that place again, but that's another story.
Long Binh Post where I was stationed in Vietnam was a big place and a major stop for Bob Hope. I saw his show twice, in 1970 and again in 1971, both at Christmas. I've only got a couple of B/W pics from 1970 but this set from '71.
The M43 "Crackerbox" Dodge ambulance seems to have the weight limit exceeded.
Stage area in the Long Binh amphitheater. This was located on the southeasterly perimeter area of the post. There was a kind of gentle bluff along that area and the engineers had excavated a U-shape into it for the amphitheater.
Slightly to the east of the amphitheater was a helicopter pad; this shows Bob Hope and his people coming in for the show.
The following are just pictures showing the crowd. I don't have any actual pictures of Bob Hope; as you can see, I was very far back. One picture of the stages shows some entertainers on it but it's your guess as to who they were.
I've looked at this area as it is today. You cannot find any trace of the hole in the ground where the amphitheater was. In looking at an old map of Long Binh Post and comparing to the Google Earth images, it's pretty plain that the hole was filled in some time since the US left. Part of the former Long Binh Post remains an off-limits area in use by the Vietnamese Military. Other parts of it have been given over to industrial/commercial development and a few small areas have had residential development spring up.
The military police had a strong presence at these events. Note the V-100 armored cars.
In one of these pictures, you can see soldiers wearing Cav Stetsons. These were popular with some members of the 1st Cav, and their use later in the war like this was probably the inspiration Francis Ford Coppola to show the Cav troopers in "Apocalypse Now" wearing them. My thought then and now is that they were kinda bogus and posing. My guess is that they were worn in the rear areas and prob. not often in combat. Just a guess.
By this time in the war, late 1971, the 1st Cav in Vietnam was down to one remnant brigade, the 3rd. It was run as a separate brigade and no longer had any operational connection with the rest of the division which had decamped back to Fort Hood. The war was being wound down. This separate brigade was operating around Bien Hoa/Long Binh area mostly in support of the ARVN, doing recon, and security duties at firebases. The days of massive sweeps in the Ia Drang Valley were way over. I think part of the function of this brigade was to show the so. Vietnamese that we still had some skin in the game, a kind of morale-booster. "Look, we still have the Cav there!"
As it happened, this amphitheater was located only a few hundred yards from our quarters. However, I don't recall ever going over there except on the two Bob Hope show occasions.
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....by the way-the Wright Pat AFB museum has a VERY nice exhibit dedicated in honor and memory of Bob Hope doing these shows....includes some monitors that run continuous loop of these shows-and I believe at least one of them may be this very show you attended...
