Ann-Margret Performing for U.S. Service Members in Vietnam in the Mid-1960s

Award-winning actress and singer Ann-Margret is known for her commitment to entertaining U.S. troops during the Vietnam War. In 1966, she responded to a request signed by over 3,000 troops to perform for them and traveled to Vietnam with three bandmates on a USO tour, traveling to Saigon, the USS Yorktown, and the dangerous “Iron Triangle.”

“I received a letter a long time ago from [troops] in Vietnam, and they wanted me to come there and perform,” she said. “I remember there were 3000 signatures on this one letter, so I wanted to go the next day!”

In her book, Ann-Margret wrote that she “regarded the trip as a moral responsibility, something I owed to the soldiers and to America. … Nothing could deter me.”

She also said that politics played no part in her decision to go. “I went [to Vietnam] for the guys and ladies,” she said. “I went there for them. It had nothing to do with politics. Absolutely nothing.”

Two short years later, she returned to the war zone to perform for troops again—this time with Bob Hope’s USO Christmas Show. In size and scope, the second trip was nothing like the first.

Flanked by about 80 entertainers and crew members—including her husband—Ann-Margret performed for tens of thousands of troops on posts that were relatively safe in comparison to the 1966 shows. More than 20,000 showed up for the stop in Saigon alone.

With his trademark golf club in tow, Bob Hope hosted the colossal, Broadway-sized production and was the catalyst behind getting Ann-Margret back to Vietnam.

“Bob asked me,” she said, adding they previously worked on each other’s TV specials back in the States.

While she didn’t encounter any live fire on the 1968 tour, she witnessed the damage and pain it inflicted on American troops. She visited combat hospitals, thanking the wounded warriors and their caretakers for their sacrifices and tireless work on behalf of the American people—many who showed little appreciation for the men and women who gave so much.

“The thing about my Vietnam guys, (for) some of them when they came home, it was this political thing again,” she said. “They were not greeted nicely. They didn’t have people at the airports hugging them when they came home, as they should have.”