The USO
by Nancy Henderson
Volunteer Mary Parry, 85, recalls sitting at her USO desk at Fort Drum, a U.S. Army base near Watertown, N.Y. (pop. 26,705), in 2006 when a young soldier from Alabama approached with tears in his eyes.
“What’s the matter?” Parry asked the soldier, who was at the base recovering from injuries suffered in the Middle East. “Oh ma’am,” he stammered, “you remind me of my grandmother.”
“For a minute I had tears too,” Parry recalls. “I didn’t know what to say. So I just said, ‘Thank you.’”
It’s moments like this—seeing homesick soldiers who miss family and friends—that inspire Parry to give so freely of her time. She first volunteered for the USO in 1941, the same year President Franklin D. Roosevelt directed Congress to charter the United Service Organizations to provide moral support and recreation to American servicemen.
To carry out that mission, the USO created more than 3,000 “Home Away From Home” centers in churches, barns, storefronts and other sites nationwide. The centers allowed GIs, who often were far from home, to socialize with new civilian friends, watch movies, or just enjoy free coffee and doughnuts.
Parry was 18 when she and her girlfriends signed up to help at a USO center housed in a former automobile showroom in her hometown of Geneva, N.Y. (pop. 13,617). “The fellas were all joining the military,” she says. “So we thought, ‘Hey, we’ll go down there and dance. What else are we gonna do?’ Were we in for a rude awakening.”
Parry did more than dance; she worked the lunch counter, helped young soldiers write letters to their families, and listened as they told her how much they missed their parents and sweethearts. By the end of World War II, more than 1.5 million USO volunteers had made life a little easier for American troops.
Over the decades, the jovial Parry has volunteered at several USO centers while living in various towns in the Northeast with her husband, Walter. In fact, when she moved to Watertown in 1959, Parry spotted a USO sign in a downtown window and soon she was running the place. When the building closed, she operated the organization out of her home, hosting cookouts for servicemen and sometimes taking in weary soldiers for the night to give them a small taste of home.
Like a big hug
Thanks to more than 26,000 volunteers like Parry, the Washington, D.C.-based USO remains a haven for soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who are far from home. The nonprofit organization, funded solely by private donations, operates more than 130 centers, including 51 sites in Germany, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, Korea, Afghanistan, Qatar and Kuwait, during peacetime and war. Services ranging from crisis counseling and housing assistance to e-mail access and mobile units bring hope to troops in hard-to-reach, and often unstable, locations.
“The bulk of what we do is like a big hug,” USO CEO Ned Powell says. “That’s all it is, and that’s all it was during World War II—just a little bit of home to remind you that people were still behind you, still cared and knew where you were. Our mission is the same as it was in 1941: to make sure that our men and women in uniform know that America holds them in their heart.”
Powell recalls the day a young caddy approached him during a fund-raising golf tournament to thank him for the moral support the USO provided his father. “He literally picked me up, with tears streaming down his face and he said, ‘You guys saved my dad’s life in Vietnam.’ For almost all of the folks that went to Vietnam—and I’ve been told this time and again by the vets—the USO was the only friend they had.”
That friendship, Powell says, is courtesy of hard-working volunteers. “At the core these are people who are deeply patriotic, who understand the importance of saying thank you,” he says. “These are people with good hearts.”
Uniting families across the miles
It’s not just soldiers who benefit from USO services. Their families do, too. Chantelai Lyons, 10, and her four younger siblings in Norfolk, Va., may not understand all of the effort behind the USO’s United Through Reading program, but they have reaped its benefit. In 2006, while their father, Craig Lyons, was serving six months aboard a Navy ship in the Persian Gulf, they received a DVD of him reading a Berenstain Bears book aloud just for them. “It was pretty cool that I got to see him,” Chantelai says. “When we first got the DVD we were like, ‘Ooh! We’re going to read a book with Dad!’ We were happy and excited.”
The reading program is available at 41 USO sites, where the organization supplies recording equipment, books and packaging materials, and handles the mailings. “Children can turn the TV on 10 times a day and see Mommy or Daddy,” says Mary Moyer, director of the Fort Eustis (Va.) USO. “There’s no better program for people in the service to communicate with their kids.”
“It meant a lot because they could actually see me live and in person, so they didn’t have to miss me the entire six months,” says Lyons, a paralegal now stationed at Naval Station Norfolk. “I think it was more about seeing dad than about reading books.”
His wife, Kimberlee, 27, agrees. As soon as the first DVD arrived, she watched it with their children. “They sat and opened the books and followed along with him the first time,” she says. “But the second time they just wanted to look at him.”
Entertaining the troops
Despite dozens of lesser-known USO programs, most Americans still equate the organization with the late Bob Hope and his Christmas shows. The celebrity tours, which began in 1941 with seven traveling show buses, now reach hundreds of thousands of uniformed men and women worldwide each year. Entertainers such as comedian Robin Williams, country singer Toby Keith and actor Gary Sinise visit airplane hangars, flatbed trucks and bunkers, free of charge, to cheer on the troops with handshakes, conversation and morale-boosting musical and comedy routines.
Wayne Newton, chairman of the USO Celebrity Circle, which recruits other entertainers, was 7 years old when he performed in his first USO show—for President Harry Truman. “I wanted to be in the military but because of my asthma they wouldn’t take me,” Newton says. “So I thought if I couldn’t serve one way I would serve another.”
Newton still entertains the troops up to 10 times a year. “They are my heroes,” he says. “I would not be able to live the life I lead if it were not for them, and they are the best audience in the world. The USO, along with myself, will be there for the troops until everyone comes home.”
And when the troops do return home, volunteers like Mary Parry will be there to help, whether she’s offering a kind word to a homesick soldier or driving 70 miles to the Syracuse, N.Y., airport to pick up a returning soldier who needs a ride to Fort Drum. “They’ve called in the middle of the night, many times,” Parry says. “Many nights I’d get up during bad snowstorms and go.”
Occasionally, when Parry grows a bit weary of the “job,” she remembers why she’s stayed with it all these years. “It gives you a whole different perspective,” she says. “I’m a happier person because of it. If I do have a bad day, all I have to think about is the soldiers.”
Nancy Henderson is a freelance writer in Chattanooga, Tenn.
first appeared: 1/20/2008
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1/22/08 8:59 AM
Although I enjoyed the article, our local USO in Jacksonville, North Carolina was not mentioned. We have the longest continuing run USO in the country. Judy Pickford is the state director, having started as the local director. She has helped launch USO extensions at the airports in both Raleigh and Charlotte. With many bases in our state, the largest being Camp Lejeune Marine Corps base next to Jacksonville, and Fort Bragg Army base in Fayetteville, our service men go through the airports often and it is nice to have this little bit of home for them. As I read this article, I was sure our USO would be mentioned but was very disappointed when it wasn't.
1/22/08 6:56 PM
As a Vietnam veteran, I would like to challenge the sincerity of Toby Keith and the publicity that he gains for his exposure with our present day veterans, I don't care how many tours he's made to Iraq to entertain the troops. Nancy Henderson needs to do her homework. Keith is good buddies with one of America's notorious cowards has been rock guitarist Ted Nugent who boasted in an interview with the Detroit Free Pres (July 15, 1990) to urinating and defecating in his pants for an entire week before reporting for his draft board physical to avoid serving his country during the Vietnam War. Keith even dragged Nugent to Iraq and foisted him in the faces of our brave troops. He continued with his insulting tour in the U.S. having Nugent participate in presenting folded flags to grieving family members who lost loved ones in these Middle East conflicts. How can Keith insult these true American patriotic families by presenting Nugent in their grieving presence. Does Keith really think that these American families would respect him if they knew the truth about Nugent?? Moreover, what kind of respect is Keith showing Vietnam veterans with his association with such a coward like Nugent?? There are many of us Vietnam veterans who question the sincerity of Keith and his antics. Come clean Keith, you can't have it both ways.
1/29/08 12:51 PM
I thoroughly enjoyed the article about the USO. I was in the U. S. Army during peacetime for our county which was from 6/30/58 to 6/29/60. I was stationed at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri & have two USO experiences that still remain in my memory nearly 50 years later.
I had been at Ft. Leonard Wood only a month prior to Christmas of 1958 & had been in the Army for les than 6 months. I obtained a 3 day pass & decided that since I was born & raised in Virginia & had never been to the mid-west that I would use the 3 day pass to go to St. Louis. This was my first Christmas away from home & while at the USO in downtown St. Louis I was approached by 2 guys & asked if I would like to go home with them for Christmas dinner. I was leary of doing this but one of the USO workers assured me that it was okay as they were brothers who came to the USO every Christmas & took a serviceman home with them.
They were from an Italian family & I enjoyed my first & only Christmas dinner Italian style & remember it as being delicious. After dinner they took me to the local bowling alley & treated me to a few lines of bowling which I also enjoyed.
I will always regret not getting their full names & addresses so that I thank them for the kindness they extended to me. I always said that when I got out of the service that I would do the same thing for a serviceman but I am ashamed to admit that to this day, I have never done so. I have not lived near a USO for most of my life which is the main reason for me not doing so.
The second USO event in my life came a week later at New Years when I had another 3 day pass. This time I decided to catch the first bus that arrived at the bus station regardless where it was headed, St. Louis, Kansas City, or Tulsa, OK. The first one to arrive was to KC so I made my first trip to that city. On Saturday night I attended a dance that was held at the downtown USO/Catholic Youth Center combined & saw a young lady come in that I eventually got enough nerve to ask to dance. That was the start of a long distance courtship & about every two weeks I made a trip to KC to see her. We were married the following July & have 3 children together. Unfortunately we are no longer married but I will always remember that I met the mother of my 3 wonderful children thanks partially to the USO.
Wesley L. Poindexter
Orange Beach, Alabama
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