USO At 65: Same Mission, New Faces

The USO has been a beacon for several generations of American servicemen and women, trying to make life a little easier for U.S. troops stationed around the world, and bringing them performers from back home.

For those who fought World War II, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby were the USO.

All these years later, the USO is still on the job, turning 65 this holiday season.

And, reports correspondent Lee Cowan on CBS News Sunday Morning, although USO shows have changed — the music, the jokes, the clothes, the hairstyles all different — the USO's mission remains the same. As they put it: to carry on — until every one comes home.

These days, the entertainers range from Wayne Newton to Kid Rock, from Robin Williams to Al Franken — who says you don't have to support the war to support the troops — and even include the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.

Of all the emotions swirling around this time of year, remarks Cowan, there is one as biting as Jack Frost: If you're not home this morning, chances are you're homesick.

And there are few farther away from home this Christmas Eve than those in uniform.

Having to deck the halls in Baghdad, or trim a tree in Bosnia, are part of the many troop sacrifices we hear so much about.

But even in the midst of war, holiday traditions survive, thanks in large part to the USO.

Hope spent more Christmases in fatigues than those actually in the military.

On tour during the Vietnam War, Hope cracked, "We would have been here sooner, but the Ho Chi Minh trail is murder during the rush hour!"

He brought that classic humor to some of the saddest places on the planet.

But he also brought guests, such as Marilyn Monroe, and big names, such as singers and dancers like Ann-Margret.

"We went probably 20 different places," she told Cowan.

Few bodies "embodied" the USO spirit more.

was a USO regular in Vietnam by the time she was 25.

"They made me an honorary Ranger," she recalls.

Not a bad gift from the Army.

But the Navy gave her quite a souvenir, too!

"I went on the Yorktown in '66. ... When we were coming in on the helicopter, of course — it's an aircraft carrier, and the gentlemen were all in white, and they, they spelled out, 'Hi, Annie' on the deck."

She still refers to the troops as "her gentlemen" and, to this day, she keeps a photo a soldier gave her taped to her mirror.

"You can see I'm extremely emotional about this," she says, choking up. "It's my honor to go over there. It's my honor. ... I mean, what I do is nothing. What they do every day of their lives, they go out there and all they want is our support."

Things have changed, Cowan points out. This is not your father's USO.

Instead of the dulcet tones of the Andrews Sisters, now it's performers such as Kid Rock who rattle the rafters.

The emcee is frequently Wayne Newton, working the stage with jokesters such as Al Franken, who opposes the Iraq war, but says he does it to support the troops.

"I deliberately don't do political stuff," Franken notes. "It's all entertainment."

Ned Powell, who now heads the USO, says, "As long as we have men and women in service, as long as they're a long ways from home — and I don't see that changing anytime soon — there's gonna be a need for us to look 'em square in the eye, on a regular basis, and say, 'Hey, thank you.' That's all we do."

And, adds Cowan, it's what they've been doing for 65 years.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt founded the USO in 1941, to help the nation cope with the thousands of young soldiers pouring into small town train stations.

He took groups from the Salvation Army to the YMCA and put them under one umbrella. He called it the United Service Organizations — the USO — and charged it with giving the troops a taste of home, and keeping them "occupied."

More young men met more young women at USO dances than almost any other place at the time; more than a few marriages were born there, too.

These days, it's usually the performers doing the dancing, and no one has taken to the USO stage more recently than the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, who have done some 60 tours over the years.

One of them, Megan Fox, says she's gotten used to the reaction: "You kind of walk into a mess hall and all of a sudden, people go, 'Oh, my gosh, there are girls, there's girls, girls! Girls are here? There's girls here?"

They're just now wrapping up a tour in Baghdad, and one in Korea.

Makenzi Swicegood says the time away from their NFL team is worth it, to root for the bigger team overseas: "You just kind of learn a little bit more about yourself, and what you thought going in there, and how much those people affect your life."

Comedian Jeffrey Ross jokes, "You've heard of Bob Hope? I'm no Hope!"

He admits he never thought too much about the troops, let alone worry about ways to entertain them until, one night in a comedy club, he agreed to accompany Drew Carey on a USO tour of Iraq.

He turned the experience into a documentary called "Patriot Act," and found a bit of himself.

"Everybody says, 'I support the troops. Oh, I support the troops.' How?" Ross observed. "The best show I ever had was after flying all night, landing in Ala Sad, Iraq, performing for a bunch of Marines. (In) the middle of somewhere. But they wouldn't exactly tell us where we were. Secret, undisclosed location. And I'll never forget it. I think it was the best performance I ever had. I just remember the laughs just hitting me, bam! Bam! Bam! ... I'll never forget it; I feel like they appreciated more than any other crowd has ever appreciated me."

That's especially true for younger entertainers such as Wilder Valderrama, most recently in the film "Fast Food Nation."

He says he sees himself in the soldiers: "They're practically our age, you know? They're, you know, 23, 24, ya know? I'm 26 years old, and a lot of my friends are 25, 24, you know, up till like 19."

He's had friends killed in Iraq. In fact, he wanted to join the military himself, as a pilot.

Had his career not taken off on "That 70's Show," Valderrama says he'd likely be in Iraq now.

When the offer came from the USO to bring his MTV hit "Yo Mamma" to the troops, he jumped at the chance; his first tour is set for next month.

"We're so blessed to have other people who are so courageous to take that job upon themselves and to take such huge responsibility on our behalf," he remarked to Cowan.

As much attention as the entertainers get, the bulk of what the USO does these days involved things doing what it was created to do those 65 years ago: give the troops a hearty handshake, a thank you, and comfort when and where they need it.

USO airport lounges rival most airline clubs, Cowan says.

There, troops can catch up on e-mail, watch a movie on a big screen TV, or borrow a cell phone.

There are more than 130 such centers around the world.

None of the services costs the soldiers a cent, which is astonishing because the USO is not, as some people believe, an arm of the government, with deep Pentagon pockets. It's a private, non-profit organization that has only lasted this long because of the good graces of corporate sponsors, and volunteers — more than 30,000 of them.

In the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport, there's even a children's reading room, where soldiers such as Samantha Rucker, who Cowan found on her way to Iraq, can record a bedtime story for her niece.

USO volunteer Wendy Adler tells Cowan, "It's hard to watch them go through the reading of the story, and you think how brave they are to be able to put that on camera, because you know they're thinking the same thing I am, which is, 'This may be their legacy, this may be it, this may be the only time their kids see them alive again.' That is very emotional."

Rucker says, "The people here are friendly, they give you hugs, they're like, 'Hey, how's it going? How's your day, blah blah blah.' They're just wonderful people."

People such as Carolyn McClellan, whose son and grandson are both Marines.

"I don't know that I've ever done anything in my life that means more than what I do here," she says, adding, "I would hope that somebody is doing the same for my son and my grandson, and I know they would if they go into a USO."