Bob “I never met a war I didn’t like” Hope

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you have been reported for hate.

Sir, that is ignorant.

I'm not a big Hope fan. He treated women like dirt. But there was one rule on his Christmas tours and that was, "Never cry." Why? He'd bring those starlets and singers into the hospitals after they'd do the main show. They'd see the young men torn to bits, faces burned off, and they'd have to smile and shake their hands -- if they still had hands -- and do a request...without their voices breaking. Hope knew the boys didn't want to be pitied. They wanted a moment to forget. A moment were they got to see a pretty girl smile at them warmly despite how they knew they looked.

I also know how much his shows meant to the men who were over there. One of my student teachers had written a poem that we ignorant stateside people couldn't fathom about what it meant to him to be able to see Ann Margaret onstage. It was home. It was a break from the insanity. But you thought it was Bob Hope doing a star turn.