By Janelle Gelfand
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Bob Hope entertained an estimated 10 million GIs in 50 years of USO shows, but he made at least two local veterans feel like he was performing just for them.

Hope's first USO performance took place the year the United Service Organizations was founded, 1941. He appeared at March Field in Riverside, Calif.

Theodore Gardner, 82, of Hyde Park was one of 5,000 sailors watching Hope in San Diego in 1942. Gardner was a 21-year-old about to be shipped out to fight the second naval battle of Guadalcanal. Hope brought Les Brown and his Band of Renown, and a gorgeous 17-year-old singer named Doris Kappelhoff - Doris Day - from Cincinnati.

"It was bittersweet," recalls Gardner, who was a fire (gunnery) controlman under Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz. "It was so entertaining, so uplifting, which is what it was intended to do. Then we had to leave. We left home, and our girlfriends, friends and family behind us.

"His sensitivity was incredible. He did his homework, no matter where he was.

"His humor was cutting and to the point, but it was clever. There was no profanity, no lascivious references. It was really high-class. That was Bob Hope.

"He loved to sing, and he had a funny voice," adds Gardner. "Hope was a hoofer. He was a vaudevillian. He did his little two-step, not swinging the golf club - that came a little later, in peacetime."

Hope will be remembered as long as there is a GI left, says Bob Clore, 58, of Edgewood. Clore was a specialist fifth class in the U.S. Army, when he saw Hope perform at 9 a.m. on Christmas morning 1967 in Long Binh, Vietnam. Hope's guest stars were Barbara McNair and Raquel Welch.

"It made my Christmas," Clore says. "He always closed with the song, 'Thanks for the Memory.' Well, I think I need to thank him for the memories."

Even though there were at least 10,000 GIs watching the show, it was absolutely quiet during that song, he recalls.

"If you're there, and you don't know what the outcome of your life is, and then to have somebody come over and do that for you, it's pretty important," he says. "I'll carry that with me until I die."

Hope made 700 USO trips. His annual Christmas show started in 1948, and his last USO show came during the 1990 Christmas season, when he entertained Operation Desert Shield troops.

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Mark Curnutte contributed. E-mail jgelfand@enquirer.com