Crestview Bulletin
January 03, 2011 10:15 AM
By Brian Hughes | brianh@crestviewbulletin.com
Movie actor Robin Williams never starred in a movie about him, but the stepfather of Crestview resident Greg Bledsoe also had an important role in Vietnam War-era military broadcast radio.
While Williams portrayed an irreverent and brash DJ in the 1987 comedy, “Good Morning Vietnam,” Bledoe’s stepfather, Chuck Anger, a Valparaiso resident, went through an experience similar to that of Adrian Cronauer, the character played by Williams.
Forty-five years ago this Christmas, Anger, already a World War II Navy veteran and then an Air Force master sergeant, and a small group of fellow airmen started a radio station to entertain U.S. troops stationed in Ubon, a U.S. air base in northern Thailand.
Shortly thereafter, Bob Morton, then a young airman with broadcast experience, was transferred to Ubon. Anger and Morton became fast friends as the short-range, daylight-hours AM radio station was launched.
Because one of Ubon’s missions was coordinating supply runs from Japan, the radio pioneers put together a list of equipment they needed. Return flights brought turntables, tape recorders, microphones and other electronics. Ubon engineering staff put together the transmitter, Morton said.
But one thing was missing: content.
“We had a very small music library,” Morton said. “I had some contacts back in the States with record producers. I told them we didn’t have Armed Forces Radio and what we were up to. Pretty soon we started getting the same packages of new records they sent to the big radio stations.”
As the popularity of their station caught on, Anger, Morton and their comrades were soon broadcasting 24 hours a day. Volunteer deejays manned the airwaves after their normal duty hours.
One of their biggest thrills was interviewing Bob Hope and celebrities from his 1965 USO Christmas show when it came to Ubon. Morton and Anger were waiting on the flight line to meet the stars, who also included singers Anita Bryant and Jack Jones, big band leader Les Brown and His Band of Renown, and actresses Carroll Baker and Joey Heatherton.
“We caught ‘em as they were coming off the airplane,” Morton said. “What an exciting time we had recording those interviews.”
The reel-to-reel recording is one of Morton’s prized mementos. It stayed with him after he left the service, and even after he lost touch with Anger, who stayed in the Air Force until the 1970s.
“I kept this reel-to-reel tape and never thought very much about it,” Morton said from his home in North Carolina. In the course of several moves, the treasured recording was accidentally stashed with other belongings in an outdoor storage shed without climate control. When he found it, he was devastated, thinking surely he had destroyed it.
“I got down my old reel-to-reel tape recorder and put the tape on it,” Morton recalled. “All I got was a hum. I felt sure it was lost. Then I cleaned the heads — they hadn’t been cleaned in years — and it was just as clear as the day it was recorded.”
He then got to thinking about his old war buddy and in 2000, through the Internet, found Anger, who has lived in Valparaiso since 1971. Anger had remained in broadcast radio, serving for many years as program director for WFSH-AM, Bledsoe said.
“Chuck lost his wife, Hilda, last year and I’ve been trying to keep him cheered up,” Morton said.
Thinking of that highlight of their military broadcast career, Morton contacted the assistant to former Las Vegas entertainer and actress Kaye Stevens, one of the performers from that 1965 USO show, who now runs a Christian ministry. Stevens surprised Anger with a call.
“He was so excited he could hardly talk,” Morton said.
Meanwhile, Morton realized he had better preserve the valuable recording he and Anger had made.
“I took the tape and some pictures I had and put a video together,” he said.
The video, which includes footage of Bob Hope’s Ubon USO show, stills, and the audio of Morton and Anger’s interviews, has received more than 25,500 views on YouTube.
It also led to a call from Bob Hope Enterprises.
“I thought somebody was going to complain that I put this thing on the Internet,” Morton said. “As it turned out, they wanted a copy to put in Bob’s library in California.
I’m just fascinated that 25,000 people have looked at that thing.”
He also heard from, Lt. Col. Elwyn Whitsitt, the pilot of the C-130 aircraft that flew Bob Hope’s USO troupe around Southeast Asia. Whitsitt shared photos of the trip with Morton.
But best of all, he has kept in steady contact with, Anger, his old pal, who recently suffered a stroke and is now undergoing rehabilitation at The Manor at Blue Water Bay in Niceville.
“He sounds good,” Morton said. “He sounds like he’s beginning to get some of his strength back. He’s a strong guy. He is a true American hero.”