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Defense Secretary William S. Cohen greets Johnny Grant, Hollywood's ceremonial mayor and a veteran of 54 USO tours, during a military concert in Beverly Hills, Calif. Grant was the master of ceremonies of the Nov. 30 concert, hosted by DoD and the USO to honor the Hollywood film industry
Johnny Grant joined the Army Air Corps during World War II, hosting a daily radio show in New York City for servicemen and women. During this time, he interviewed many entertainment stars who were in the city. After his discharge, he stayed in New York, working as a reporter for station WINS.
Having moved to California, Grant appeared as a disc jockey on Los Angeles area radio stations KGIL (1949–50) and KMPC (1951–59)
I was an orderly at Danang hospital July or August of 1966 when Johnny interviewed me mainly because i was from Whittier Calif, he interviewed me in the mess hall of the Danang Hospital, my parents back home were able to see this when it aired on local Los Angeles TV . I was just a dumb 19 year old kid who knew nothing about the war and had no idea why i was in a Country i had never even heard of months earlier. I only knew what I had been told, it was a few months later in November when we took on mortors at the Hospital that i saw and interacted what many soldiers who were recovering went through, and suddenly I
ReplyDeleteHad a first hand reality of how nasty this really was, suddenly the poor boys and young men who were severly wounded in those hospital beds were immediately respected much more by me as I had experienced much of what they did EVERY DAY , out in the fields of rice and jungle. To say it was scary and frightening would be an understatement, reality set in very quickly, unless you have experienced something like this firsthand, you would NOT understand,