Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service(82)

The following year Joe asked me to cohost the show with him. I’ve been doing it every year since, plus joining in the parade held the day after. (I missed one year only, 2017, when my granddaughter was born.) Cohosting this show with my dear buddy Joe, while acknowledging the sacrifices of our military families, is one of the highlights of my year.

In 2007, I was introduced to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, a prestigious and uniquely exclusive group of American heroes. The Medal of Honor is the highest award given to any individual serving in the Armed Services of the United States—and you receive it only for valor in action against an enemy force. Over the years, I’ve become close friends with a number of recipients. The stories of these recipients are amazing, and we need to write dozens more books to tell them all. But something happened that absolutely humbled me. Medal recipients knew about the initiatives I backed to support our troops, so they decided to give me an award. That sure turned the tables, and for a while I wondered if I could even accept such a thing. I concluded that any award for me would only help shine a brighter light on the many causes I was involved in to help our veterans. I accepted and came to a special Medal of Honor Society event in Seattle to receive their Bob Hope Award for Excellence in Entertainment. It’s given to performers who positively portray military personnel in film or theater. In my case, I received it for two reasons: my performance as Lieutenant Dan and my support of our nation’s defenders.

A year earlier, at a concert the band played called Rockin’ for the Troops put on by Operation Support Our Troops America, I’d met a Medal of Honor recipient, Vietnam veteran Sammy L. Davis. In his battle days, with a broken back and not knowing how to swim, Sammy had used an air mattress to traverse a river while under enemy attack. His actions helped rescue three wounded American soldiers. A scene in Forrest Gump shows President Lyndon Johnson placing a Medal of Honor around Forrest’s neck. Filmmakers used original footage of Sammy and spliced Tom Hanks’s head onto Sammy’s body. We shared a chuckle about that, and over the years Sammy became a wonderful friend and today is an ambassador for my foundation.

One open door led to another. Backstage at a USO concert at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, I met Dave McIntyre, a USO board member and the CEO of TriWest Healthcare Alliance, which provides healthcare for our nation’s military. He offered to help my mission however possible, and eventually helped pay for my band to play at various USO shows around the world. The USO only offers a small per diem for performers on tours. While I work for free, my band members all make their living by performing, and the USO per diem isn’t enough to pay their fee. So prior to Dave’s offer, I funded my band out of my own pocket or by raising funds here and there from various pals of mine. To keep my band engaged, I wanted to find as many opportunities to play as possible. Sometimes if I had a show at a military base on a Friday, I would look for a local venue to play at on a Saturday and offer to bring my band there. But the clubs do not pay enough, and I found myself having to supplement the expenses of the band, simply to give the band members an additional gig that weekend. I was feeling the strain. Dave’s generous support allowed us to play at even more USO shows.

Dave also sat on the board of the Medal of Honor Foundation and was one of their main sponsors. After the event in Seattle in 2007, Dave told me that the society was considering doing an event the following year in Los Angeles. Would I be interested in supporting it? I was immediately on board and took Dave to see the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, a fantastic, high-roofed, multiwindowed venue that allows people to sit indoors underneath the Air Force One airplane that served seven US presidents from 1973 to 2001. Dave had never been to the library before, and as it’s one of my favorite spots in the area, I knew it would be the perfect venue for the Medal of Honor event. Dave agreed, and thanks to his encouragement, I was one of three cohosts of the Congressional Medal of Honor Celebration of Freedom from 2008 to 2012. The event was a magnificent black-tie affair, and each year I was able to recommend performers from my industry to receive the Bob Hope Award for Excellence in Entertainment. I’ve made many great friends within the society over the years. I serve on advisory groups for the Medal of Honor Society and the Medal of Honor Museum Foundation and continue to do events with them each year. I feel so privileged to be part of the work of these incredible heroes.



Beginning in 2003 with trips to Landstuhl, Walter Reed, and Bethesda, visiting our wounded in military hospitals around the country became more and more frequent for me. In subsequent years, in a stream of hospital visits, I met many incredible people. Elaine Rogers, president and CEO of USO of Metropolitan Washington–Baltimore, the USO responsible for multiple USO facilities in the DC area, is a dear friend and dedicated troop supporter who has served the USO for more than forty years. Elaine and her team have accompanied me on several of my hospital visits over the years, and we have done many great events together, including our annual Salute to the Troops event where we bring dozens of our wounded from the hospitals to Las Vegas for a big morale boost.

I’ll never forget my first trip to the DC hospitals. After a bomb exploded in Iraq in July 2003, Marine Staff Sergeant Mark Graunke Jr. lost an eye, hand, fingers, thumb, and right leg. I met Mark on my first visit to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, on September 11, 2003, where he was recovering. He was the first wounded service member I visited on the first of many trips over the years to the DC military hospitals. He wanted to talk about Lieutenant Dan, and we shared a few stories and I sat with him for quite a while before I went on to the next room. I saw many soldiers and marines who’d been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan—as well as in places we don’t normally associate with today’s wars. Two marines I saw were being treated on ventilation machines for malaria after serving in Africa. They were both very sick, unconscious, with tubes down their throats. Their families stayed with them in the hospital, and I sat with the families for some time. It is sobering to realize our service members can become wounded, ill, or injured in so many ways and places.