Good evening, Midland!
By David J. Lee - Odessa American
Midland International Airport More than 200 people turned out Saturday night to hear the original voice of the 1960s Southeast Asian greeting, "Good morning, Vietnam."
Adrian Cronauer, who was the inspiration for the movie "Good Morning, Vietnam," spoke to a room full of Vietnam veterans and many others Saturday at the Commemorative Air Force High Sky Wing hangar.
"That was such a popular film - it plays late night so much - a lot of people want to know about me," Cronauer said. "I've had my 15 seconds of fame extend into 15 years."
Cronauer was invited as part of the CAF's "Remembrance of War" seminar series, which is sponsored in part by the Odessa Council for the Arts and Humanities.
"The Commemorative Air Force is trying to branch the museum and the CAF so we're not just focusing on World War II," said Col. Bill Coombes, seminar series chairman. "We also want to look at the Korean War and Vietnam at those people who were in the military and in aviation."
Coombes said Cronauer was an excellent choice.
"He was an airman," Coombes said. "He was in the Air Force, even though he was a disc jockey.
"We thought this is a clever way to kick off our seminar series for 2005 and reach out to the Vietnam veterans of this area and remind them of some of their pleasant memories of Vietnam."
And Cronauer said there were indeed pleasant memories, despite the war around him.
"I have a lot of good memories of Vietnam," the retired Air Force sergeant said as he stood beneath models of World War II era planes at the High Sky Wing hangar. "I met many nice Vietnamese people there. I interviewed a lot of stars when they came through for USO shows."
But it was frightening too, he said.
"The Viet Cong blew up the radio station or a hotel where we lived," he said. "The good part about that was since the radio station was blown up so frequently, we had all new equipment."
Robin Williams played Cronauer in the 1987 film "Good Morning, Vietnam." In the movie, Cronauer is assigned to take over the Air Force Radio's Saigon broadcasts. Instead of the dull shows before him, Cronauer plays whatever records tickle his fancy and bursts on air with a bundle of energy.
Cronauer co-authored the original story for the movie. Williams' performance - which Cronauer said portrayed him loosely - received an Academy Award nomination. "Anyone in the military will tell you if I did half the things Robin Williams did, I'd still be in Leavenworth rather than Texas," he said, also noting that no other character in the movie was a real person.
"They were all stereotypes," he said. "Not that I couldn't point out half a dozen people just like them."
Cronauer said the movie script went through five revisions before it made the screen.
But he said there was more to talk about than the movie that made him famous. Cronauer also talked about what he calls the mythical perception that soldiers in Vietnam were murderers and baby killers. And he said he wanted to dispel the image that veterans are camouflage wearing beggars on the street corner.
"The only way we can overcome that image is to tell people the truth," he said. "We have to remedy this ourselves."
Finally, Cronauer also talked about what heÕs done since "Good Morning, Vietnam." Just in the last three years, he's left his position as a senior partner with the eight-lawyer Washington, D.C., firm of Burch and Cronauer. There, he specialized in communications law.
Now, he is a Special Assistant to the Director of the Pentagon's POW/MIA Office.
"In my job description, there is a line that says, '... and other duties as assigned,' " he said. "That's what I do."
Cronauer, a self-described active Republican, said on behalf of the Bush administration, he acts as liaison to veterans and veterans' families. He also does a "Family Update," where he brings information about a missing soldier to that soldier's family.
"Some of these people haven't heard anything about their loved one for decades, and we're able to give them something," he said. "And that's the most rewarding part of my job."
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