The Daily Alaska empire., 1944-03-16
CONCHITA AND LARI WIRTH

CONCHITA AND LARI WIRTH
 Warm hospitality is the very es- sence of the success of a USO Club This has been said repeatedly; but it cannot be pointed out too often for it is vitally important. The hearts of it's staff members must be permeated by this spirit; anc to the fullest extent possible the clubhouse and it's furnishings must insure to all seryicemen entering it a maximum of comfort and con venience. Newcomers to our clut have frequently said that the Ju- neau USO has a wide reputation fol the warmth of it's hospitality. This is good to hear, of course. You may be sure that our staff will try to do it's best at all times to de- serve that reputation.
 We do believe that many a fel- low coming in for his first visit is truly surprised to find that map who enters as stranger can have so enjoyable a time. But we feel that lot of the credit should usually be given to the newcomer himself for bringing with him the capacity for making friendships and a genuine eagerness to have good time, such spirit of enthusiasm being contagious for Us all. Then too, every once in a while it hap pens that it is some newcomer tc whom all of us suddenly find our selves indebted for a delightful evening of unexpected good cheer.
 Tuesday night furnished a mem- orable example of this. From the moment of their arrival it was a distinct pleasure to play host to Conchita and Lari Wirth, two of the members of the USO-Camr Show troupe now touring Southeast Alaska. Before they had been with us more than a few minutes, how ever, we were aware that they were good om panions rather than guests. And when we finally let them go dong after 2 o'clock in the morning. all of us-servicemen and staff members-felt deeply in- debted to them for several of the pleasantest hours of good fellow ship ever spent at the club. Ac- complished dancers as they are well known to be, it wasn't that skill that delighted us on this occasion Indeed it never occurred to us to ask them to dance-we were much too intrigued by the story of their adventures, some intensely thrilling others extremely funny and related with a rare gift for comedy.
 Keen and thoughtful observers, these two have had a wide oppor- tunity to observe our troops in for lorn and far-away spots. The USO- Camp Show unit of which they are now members has travelled the greatest distance of any that has been up here, making the trip out on the Aleutians during the past seven months and going well up into the interior Gas far as Nome in the northwest.) Hard and dan gerous in spots as this trip has been (though they make light of the dangers) just prior to this assign ment they had finished an even longer and tougher trek-to Labra- dor and Baffinland, and across the Arctic Circle to Greenland. If you care to learn how desolate life is for our men up there, talk with Conchita and Lari; or listen to what Bernt Balchen, famous Morse avia- tor, says in a recent article in Golfers:
 Perhaps you did not even know there was war in Greenland. It was a secret war, waged in semi darkness north of the Arctic Circle, on a remote battlefield perpetually locked under ten thousand feet of solid ice. The weapons were not tommy guns and tanks; the real heroes of this war were nameless enlisted men working in Air Force ground crews at 50 below zero, or standing guard on Coast Guard cutters fighting through the pack ice, or living all winter long in isolated weather stations along the icecap, buried under IS feet of snow. Once each day they would tunnel to the surface to take their wind and temperature readings; the rest of the time there was nothing to do but wait"
 Out of such. a mission of friend Illness as theirs to lonely men in