page_title: United Service Organizations
section_title: Women entertainers
hierarchical_section_title: United Service Organizations / History / World War II / Women entertainers
caption_attribution_description: English: Original caption: FIRST USO SHOW: In Dec. 1970, we were invited to come alongside the LST TOM GREEN COUNTY to view a USO Christmas show, starring the Colorado Kappa Pickers from Colorado State University.
context_page_description: The United Service Organizations Inc. is an American nonprofit-charitable corporation that provides live entertainment, such as comedians, actors and musicians, social facilities, and other programs to members of the United States Armed Forces and their families. Since 1941, it has worked in partnership with the Department of War, and later with the Department of Defense, relying heavily on private contributions and on funds, goods, and services from various corporate and individual donors. Although it is congressionally-chartered, it is not a government agency.
  Founded during World War II, the USO sought to be the GI's "home away from home" and began a tradition of entertaining the troops that continues today. Involvement in the USO was one of the many ways in which the nation had come together to support the war effort, with nearly 1.5 million people having volunteered their services in some way. The USO initially disbanded in 1947, but was revived in 1950 for the Korean War, after which it continued, also providing peacetime services. During the Vietnam War, USO social facilities were sometimes located in combat zones.
context_section_description: One female entertainer wrote about conditions while performing:
  We've played to audiences, many of them ankle deep in mud, huddled under the ponchos in the pouring rain (it breaks your heart the first two or three times to see men so hungry for entertainment.) We've played on uncovered stages, when we, as well as the audience, got rain-soaked. We've played with huge tropical bugs flying in our hair and faces; we've played to audiences of thousands of men, audiences spreading from our very feet to far up a hillside and many sitting in the trees. ... We've played to audiences in small units of 500 or so, and much oftener to audiences of 8 to 10,000. Every night we play a different place.
  Singer-actress-dancer Ann Miller described performing for badly wounded soldiers. She did forty-eight shows for "broken soldiers," who were mostly lying on stretchers in the lobbies of hotels, watching as she entertained them. Yellin writes, "During her last show she collapsed and had to be taken home on an Army airplane." Afterwards, Miller described the experience:
  We went from ward to ward to ward, singing and dancing and trying to boost the morale of these men. It was just hell. ... I just fell apart and I think the shock of seeing those men with their arms and legs blown off – it was just frightening. But when you do it, you do it. You try to help them, try to sing and dance. You try to keep their spirits up. It's heartbreaking.
caption: US Coast Guard, 1st show in Vietnam, 1970
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