CLOSE ENCOUNTER
Any reminder of home meant a lot to these guys.
Seeing Eddie Fisher in Korea meant a lot to the troops.
During the summer of 1952 I was stationed near Seoul, South Korea, with the 176th Armored Field Artillery Battalion. We received a call that a Special Services division would be arriving shortly after lunch to present an hour of entertainment. They must have gotten wind of our lunch menu and scheduled their arrival after eating with another unit. The farther back you were, the better the chow.
All three batteries and headquarters personnel who could be spared headed to a hillside nearby. A makeshift stage rigged from ammo crates was set up along with audio equipment. A couple of hundred men converged, waiting for the show to begin.
He arrived on schedule—Eddie Fisher, the singing heartthrob who thrilled American teenagers and their moms back home before he answered Uncle Sam’s call. The fact that he was assigned to a Special Services unit, considered a soft assignment, mattered little. Here he was, in uniform, in the Army and in Korea. He was one of us and we greeted him with enthusiasm.
Fisher sang, joked and talked about his life since becoming a soldier. His experiences differed from ours, but we laughed in all the right places. He told us that his favorite gigs were at the WAC units or with the nurses at MASH facilities. Much better scenery than he was looking at now, he teased.
We knew that as long as he was entertaining units along the 38th parallel, he faced the same dangers we did. That became apparent when, during his show, three incoming artillery rounds burst a few hundred yards up the hillside behind us.
“Guess they don’t like my singing,” he said as bits of shrapnel whizzed overhead. Those of us sitting on our helmets quickly slid them over our helmet liners and applauded his bravado.
Fisher and his band played the full hour, then headed back to Seoul. Their visit was a reminder of home and a welcome break for our battalions before we headed back to our duties.
The only improvement might have been to include one of the beautiful females Fisher later married. Debbie Reynolds or Elizabeth Taylor—either would have been OK.