photo #9002663

Another story out of Viet Nam that I didn’t know. A hollywood icon supporting our troops. Sadly, few, if any, of today’s hollywood ‘not icons’ wouldn’t think of putting themselves in danger. James Garner went to Vietnam in April 1967 knowing he could not sing, dance, or tell jokes, and chose something far harder instead. At the height of the Vietnam War, James Garner boarded a plane headed for combat zones with no act prepared. No band. No script. No routine. When he arrived, he told the soldiers the truth. He could not sing. He could not dance. He was not a comedian. What he had was credibility. Before Hollywood, Garner had been an infantryman in Korea with the 5th Regimental Combat Team. He had been wounded twice in combat and awarded two Purple Hearts. Before that, at sixteen, he served in the Merchant Marine during the final months of World War II. He knew the smell of hospital wards. He knew the sound of waiting. He knew what it meant to be young, injured, and far from home. So he did not perform. He walked. Garner moved quietly through the 12th Evacuation Hospital at Cu Chi, stopping at bed after bed in the Tropic Lightning wards. He spoke one on one with wounded soldiers, staying longer than scheduled, never rushing, never posturing. He joked lightly when it felt right. Mostly, he listened. There were no stages. No applause. Just bandages, IV poles, and young men trying to hold themselves together. He traveled to remote bases like Can Tho, places celebrity visitors rarely went. He met soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division stationed far from cameras or headlines. He extended his trip to U Tapao Airfield in Thailand, signing autographs patiently, posing for photos without moving anyone along. Garner did not treat the visit as a show. He treated it as responsibility. His connection to the troops did not come from fame. It came from shared memory. He understood that encouragement does not always arrive with noise. Sometimes it arrives as recognition. As someone who knows what your boots feel like. When he returned home, there were no press conferences. No publicity tour. The trip faded quietly behind television shows and film roles. But it did not fade for the soldiers. James Garner died in 2014 at age eighty six. He is remembered for Maverick, The Rockford Files, and a career built on ease and intelligence. Less remembered is the month he spent walking hospital wards in a war zone, conversation by conversation, handshake by handshake, with no cameras following him. Sometimes support looks like entertainment. Sometimes it looks like showing up. And staying.